No, because once the game lost me with it's complex and fiddly land-based rules, I moved on. I like the models, but even with the changes described (which yes, I tried once), there is far too much focus on land part of the space game.
Which is the point- the game has such a strong theme (centered around dropships) that it will draw in all who find it fun, but is unlikely to retain people who just want fleet vs fleet game...which is probably most people who are looking to get into spaceships combat. It has a niche, but without major changes, it cannot evolve past that niche because how specific it's rules are.
IMO anyway. That's why even with spartan death, it never expanded that much.
I feel also that it never expanded because the game have never really made it stateside.
I know it sounds US centric, but why are they ignoring a major market? you dont get big by doing that.
I think thats mainly an issue of their efforts at transatlantic logistics just not being very good. Golden or whoever it is underlying TTC is honestly just awful at the whole logistics and distribution thing. None of their product ranges are really available here. The irony of this is that Hawk was better at getting the games into the US market on its own than TTC has been, despite TTCs logistics and distribution capabilities apparently being part of the justification for selling to them.
I also think its pretty damning that this many years on TTC still don't have the full range of minis/units available for sale.
Teaser Tuesday – Dropfleet, City Streets & Sprays!
Hey Folks, it’s time for another Teaser Tuesday, this week you can expect to see an expansion to our City Streets range, a brand new Dropfleet Commander unit. As well as this some brand new spray paints.
The biggest, most modular ship we’ve ever made is coming to the store for pre-order this Friday!
Resistance Coloniser Dreadnought
This right here is the Resistance Coloniser Dreadnought. The kit itself is able to be made into three different ships: the Pathfinder, Explorer and the Coloniser (See above). All three ships are incredibly modular allowing you to build the perfect ship to add to your fleet. They range in size from being a small battlecruiser or a monstrous Dreadnought. This ship will be available to Pre-Order on Friday!
We’ll be stopping in later in the week to learn more about how you can build your Dreadnought, and what exactly it does in the game!
City Streets
Here we have the very impressive Lincoln High-Rise. It is a fantastic kit for a City Streets table top. It bolsters some impressive features such as 4 removable floors as well as a removable roof. Allowing for easy access to different levels of the building. If you want the kit to be a certain height to better fit your board, you can add or remove floors and the kit will still work perfectly.
Now for the last teaser for this week, we have 13 brand new spray paints. These will be joining our existing Painting & Modelling range, allowing us to cover an even wider range of colours. These will be available to order on Friday for UK residents only.
If you are interested to see what other MDF kits are within our City streets range you can check those out here. Alongside this if you curious to see what other Dropfleet models we produce are they can be checked out here. And Finally all of our existing paints and modelling tools can be found here.
(oh that’s also a Resistance Dreadnought – there’s a lot you can do with the kit!)
I've got to admit, whilst they still have issues with mould line placement at times they can freaking make some diverse multi-part kits for the resistance! Those are works of art in terms of how the various parts slot together to make such vastly different ships!
Im not entirely loving the dread. I admit its an impressive kit, but the two designs shown so far feel kinda bland - I think they needed to design a lot more "non-standard" parts for it so that the end result didn't look like a flattened lego construct. I.E. more parts like the prow on the orange one and bits that allow you to build out in more than two dimensions so you could add some more multi-dimensionality to the design.
I do get what you mean, I think part of that might well come just from holding and seeing it as a physical model not just as a photo, which I think makes it appear more flat than it really is. Even just a smooth rotating image might convey its shape better.
Yeah, a 360 deg rotation/video might help. Right now though it doesn't look like anything I couldn't have done with a bag full of bits and an old tube of deodorant. Don't get me wrong - the fine surface detailing and panel lines are phenomenal, as always the sculpt quality is impeccable, but geometrically speaking the end result of both builds shown look pretty meh and somewhat amateurish.
The vertical orange configuration looks a lot more saturated and intense than in the WIP shots. I think it's not the model, but the photographer, cranking nobs to give it this bright primary colors look that makes it feel 'playskool' toy-like. They did the same thing with the recent DZC repaints. It also inherently makes it feel more like a game asset than a ship from reality.
I'd love to see some more examples of the overall shape being played with. It looks really modular, but the two examples are brick-on-edge and brick-on-side, with a few weapon greebles difference. Show me the wildly divergent builds, like the space station kit produces. THAT's what I expect a Remnant to dread to look like. No Two The Same.
Resistance Dreadnought: So Many Rules Hello Dropfleet Commanders and welcome to the craziest set of rules so far!
The Resistance Coloniser Dreadnought is coming your way to pre-order this week, and we thought we should lift the lid on exactly what it brings to your fleet.
Well… this is no ordinary Dreadnought!
When the Resistance fleet was released, we saw the most modular space ship sprue ever in the Resistance Cruisers. They came with a bare hull upon which you could fasten all sorts of weapon systems and structures.
Since then we’ve released some truly cool spaceships, but most of the rest of the fleet is fairly standard, and not nearly as modular. Even the Battleship only comes as the Trident or Olympus class (although there are dozens of combinations of ship you can make with the model itself).
And while the Seneca Detonators are great explosive ships and the Galileo Monitor is fantastic at scanning, there’s long been calls to make even more modular options for the fleet.
And that’s where the Coloniser comes in!
One Box: Three Ships Although the Coloniser Dreadnought is only one of the ships you can build with this incredible new kit.
There are three different classes of ship available: the Pathfinder, Explorer and Coloniser. Each is super modular, and fills a different role in your fleet. The smallest is around the size of a Battlecruiser, and the largest is a massive Dreadnought (seriously, it can be physically the biggest ship in the game).
How did we go about making rules for all these modular ships? Well, it involves a few tables, and some trial and error. Without further ado, let’s have a look at the rules.
Pathfinder – Interstellar Raft
Starting with the smallest, let’s welcome the Pathfinder!
The Pathfinder is equivalent in size to a larger Battlecruiser. While it has a higher Signature than the likes of the Phalanx or Tribune, it also has more Hull and Point Defence.
None of these new ships come with Ablative Armour though, which means that 3+ Armour save is there to stay. It’s slightly easier to hurt than the other Resistance Battlecruisers, but stays at 3+ even after being Crippled. These big tankers are made with redundancy in mind, so you have to blow it to smithereens before it stops going!
The Pathfinder is armed with some NC-16 Missiles, which you’ll see on all the ships here. They’re a cursory defence system. If you want more defence, you’ll need to start adding options from the Dreadnought Systems list. But we’ll get to that…
Explorer – Interstellar Ark
Right, now we’re getting a little chunkier!
The Explorer is equivalent to a Battleship, but in true Resistance style, it’s a big battleship indeed! With a massive 28 Hull, it’s as survivable as most other factions’ Dreadnoughts.
However, while it has a lower Signature than most other Dreadnoughts, its Scan and Thrust are also rather low. This thing is going to have to get in close, and will rely on some Spikes (looking back at you, Galileo).
Luckily enough, this big ship isn’t quite big enough to be classed as a Dreadnought though, so you’re saved from 2 rolls on the special Crippling Damage table. Which is a nice bonus, considering this ship is going to be taking a lot of damage in a game.
Coloniser – Interstellar Dreadnought
Finally the big momma of all ships. This is probably the biggest ship in the game! Depending on how you build it of course, but there’s potential for it to be rather chonky. And the Coloniser’s statline certainly supports that!
With a massive 35 Hull, it’s the toughest ship around (although still only a 3+ save). Your enemies can see it from a mile off, and its Scan is low (which is standard for Resistance ships). The Coloniser’s Point Defence is the best in the fleet, but still rather low compared to other factions, which means you’ll have to support it properly.
This big beast of a ship must take 8 options from the Dreadnought Systems list. Its smaller cousins only have 6 and 4, respectively. That’s a lot of options! This thing can be armed to the teeth, so once it gets in range, it’s going to make a horrible mess.
But what are these Dreadnought Systems exactly? Well, that’s where we put the flavour on these ships.
Dreadnought Systems List
There we go, that’s the table.
You’ve got a couple of turret options and a couple of broadsides (including a pretty great Close Action weapon to mitigate the little missiles you start with). There are three Launch options, including a pair of torpedoes (even better with the updated torpedo rules). You can even take a Scanner Array to mitigate the Coloniser’s poor Scan range.
There are only a couple of rules when choosing options:
You must take the number of options listed (4, 6, and 8 as you go up in size). You have a limit on the number of Broadsides (there’s only so much hull on each ship – 2, 3, and 4 as you go up again). Only 1 Structure (which means you can’t put loads of Scanner Arrays on there). Although this table isn’t quite as exhaustive as that of the Cruisers, all the hits are there, and there’s a lot more variation in how many you can take. A Heavy Cruiser only gets 5 options, and the lightest one of these starts with 4!
Now, I know what you’re thinking: just pick the thing that does the most damage and put all of those on there. And that’s definitely an option, but there are two reasons that you might want to keep thinking:
A Coloniser with 8 Heavy Vent Cannons costs 670 points. That’s basically a UCM London and a Tokyo together! You’re spending a lot of your points here, and you need to be able to use those points in multiple ways. You’re not going to be able to afford as many support ships, so think about making this ship fill that role. Have a look and think not just about making this the most deadly ship around, but consider what gaps you have in your fleet. Taking a Coloniser with a toolbox of tricks will mean you have a really strong, stable platform to base your battle plan around. A couple of turrets, some broadsides, some launch, and a Scanner Array. That will be able to tackle everything your opponent throws at you – sometimes a balanced approach is better.
Although sometimes you just want to have 16 Torpedoes to fire. 8 in one round will destroy almost anything around! Although after two rounds you’ll have a big fat points sink floating around not doing much. Worth it though? Up to you!
Modular Ships, Modular Rules These new ships have a profile each, and options to upgrade the ships with a number of weapon systems and other bits and pieces. That means practically endless combinations of rules to balance!
And here’s the big caveat: these are V1.0 of these rules. They’re incredibly modular. We’ve tried to make sure the construction of your ships is limited only by your imagination. Other than each ship needing to be an approximate size, the options are up to you!
However, we do appreciate that this puts an unprecedented level of control over ship building – something that the other factions are simply not able to do. There are going to be better combos and worse combos. There will be crazy combos and simple combos. We’ve tried to think of the weirdest, most broken ones, and construct these rules and points appropriately. But there aren’t as many designers as there are players, so we’re opening the floodgates to let you figure this out.
What this boils down to is this: these rules are subject to change! Thanks to the online Fleet Builder, all rules are able to be updated and balanced periodically. We fully expect the Coloniser rules to be broken fairly quickly. It might mean we have to rebalance points or put some restrictions on the Hardpoint options. We’d like to not do that – the Resistance ethos is all about freedom of choice after all! Freedom from the Scourge oppressors, freedom from the jingoistic UCM, and freedom to put whatever weapons they want on their ships!
So, let us know what you think, and have fun! The Resistance Coloniser Dreadnought will be available for pre-order this Friday on the TTCombat webstore, and the full rules (and points) will be up then as well. Look for them around 3pm!
I like the Resistance Explorer build - its not *great* but it is pretty good and shows that the dreadnought can be built to look like something other than a bottle of deoderant or a flying lego brick.
petrov27 wrote: these are pretty cool, not sure I care for the comically large ork-like warheads on the colonizer but otherwise nice...
They would probably be easy to cut off. You can use plastic bits from the Resistance frigate sprue or the space station sprue to give smaller warheads.
Lets face it in most space ship games the weapons are grossly oversized. It's the same reason in many 6-20mm games the weapons are insanely oversized (as are other details); because in the end its more fun at 1ft from the model on the tabletop to see the weapon over seeing a tiny speck that's smaller than the line that marks a mm on a ruler.
The big torpedo I think sells that they are limited ammo, big powerful weapons compared to say smaller rocket pods and such.
Wha-Mu-077 wrote:Those Torpedos are the size of a small spaceship by themselves.
That's kinda how they operate in game as well though. Conventional point defense is inadequate to shoot them down. So less 'torpedo' more mega-ICBM. But still stupidly out of scale. Half the current size would be about right.
Wha-Mu-077 wrote:Those Torpedos are the size of a small spaceship by themselves.
That's kinda how they operate in game as well though. Conventional point defense is inadequate to shoot them down. So less 'torpedo' more mega-ICBM. But still stupidly out of scale. Half the current size would be about right.
At that size, do they even need a payload? Can't they just pretty much ram the enemy?
I mean, they basically have to - its not like the medium of space is conducive to the blast/shock effects which underwater torpedoes rely on to damage and destroy enemy shipping. Outside of ramming, they will basically have to rely on fragmentation to produce area damage, which quickly becomes unreliable given the distances involved in space (and indeed poses risk of damage to the attacker as that shrapnel will continue through space forever at the speed of the blast - its just as lethal at 100 feet as it is at 100 miles - the only difference is the density of fragments up close vs far away). The only other thing you could do is a radiation burst - but most spacecraft are shielded because thats a common environmental risk on its own, so the impact of such a weapon would be negligible. Unless you get weird with (some sort of gravity-distorting warhead maybe?), theres not a lot of options for effective AOE damage in space.
Wha-Mu-077 wrote:At that size, do they even need a payload? Can't they just pretty much ram the enemy?
Technically kinetic weapons just ram things, so yes?
chaos0xomega wrote:I mean, they basically have to - its not like the medium of space is conducive to the blast/shock effects which underwater torpedoes rely on to damage and destroy enemy shipping. Outside of ramming, they will basically have to rely on fragmentation to produce area damage, which quickly becomes unreliable given the distances involved in space (and indeed poses risk of damage to the attacker as that shrapnel will continue through space forever at the speed of the blast - its just as lethal at 100 feet as it is at 100 miles - the only difference is the density of fragments up close vs far away). The only other thing you could do is a radiation burst - but most spacecraft are shielded because thats a common environmental risk on its own, so the impact of such a weapon would be negligible. Unless you get weird with (some sort of gravity-distorting warhead maybe?), theres not a lot of options for effective AOE damage in space.
Head-canon, but 'torpedo' means a one way vehicle for overwhelming submunitions. Drive close and kill yourself to eject a million micro flechettes, blast pumped laser beams, and a boatload of guided micromissiles with mixed in ECM payloads. Or for Scourge a flotilla of razorworm packed boarding pods.
well, Harringtonverse had nuke-pumped laser lenses as AoE, but it's not like any wargame is that realistic to begin with...it has space combat so it can't be
Looking those over, i feel its not just the warhead torpedo things that seem over large - the turrets and weapons in them I think would look better to me if they were just scaled a little smaller on those ships. Ah well - just my opinion, its a design choice I am sure, probably easier to cast em that big also....
beast_gts wrote: Tangent question - are the Launch Assets in scale or just markers? (99% sure they're just markers, but don't have any to hand to check...)
Spoiler:
Just markers, the real thing is much, much smaller, if you peer into the launch bay of a UCM carrier you can see numerous teeny tiny fighters/bombers (I guess this may be the case for other factions too?)
I think the issue is that visually, large guns look fine, the WW2 battleships had some massive guns even in relation to the ship itself, so it's easy to accept. but the huge missiles look (to me anyway) too much like the spring-loaded "missiles" you'd find on GI Joe vehicles or any 90's-2000s action figure. They look toylike, even if you have in-lore explanation for their beeg size.
Cronch wrote: I think the issue is that visually, large guns look fine, the WW2 battleships had some massive guns even in relation to the ship itself, so it's easy to accept. but the huge missiles look (to me anyway) too much like the spring-loaded "missiles" you'd find on GI Joe vehicles or any 90's-2000s action figure. They look toylike, even if you have in-lore explanation for their beeg size.
The missiles also keep getting bigger relative to the rest of the model with each new generation of ships. Look at the relative size of missile to model of the New York, then Havana, then Rome. Look at the size of the torpedo on the Resistance BB and compare it to the relative size of the warhead on the Dread.
It's scale creep, plain and simple.
And I don't think it's Dave's fault. This reeks of some managerial artistic interference. "make it bigger, no, not a little bit, way bigger. Shut up and make it bigger already. Like really really big. Perfect! We'll sell of a ton of em now!"
Resistance Dreadnought: How to Build?
The new Resistance Coloniser Dreadnought is coming to pre-order today! But how to build it?
The Coloniser is the most modular spaceship kit we (or probably anyone else) have ever made! It comes in a whole load of parts. How many? This many:
That’s a whole pile of parts! There’s 68 parts included in the set, as well as some MDF spacer pieces that help connect the main hull together (more surface area = fewer dreads falling apart).
For the stats-minded of you, in there you get:
4 hull pieces
2 “twisted” hull pieces
4 of each turret
6 of each broadside (although they come in pairs, so 3 of each really)
4 sets of torps
loads of sides, wings, botanical style sections, extra gubbinz etc
2 large Dropfleet bases (you should be able to build 2 Pathfinders in one set)
That’s a lot of pieces! In fact, it’s literally as many pieces as we could fit in the box.
Of course, building one of these kits is going to be a mammoth task. You have to figure out what size you want, what weapons you want, and how you want it to look. We recommend cleaning up all the pieces and then doing a lot of dry-fitting first.
What’s This Bit??
With so many pieces, it’s worth having a little primer on the parts.
For the three sizes of dread (Pathfinder, Explorer, Coloniser – see yesterday’s post for details!) you’ll want to use an assortment of different parts. While the construction is entirely up to you, we’d recommend:
Pathfinder: 3 hull sections, either regular or twisted
Explorer: 5 hull sections
Coloniser: 6 hull sections
Although those are only recommendations, and you can make any sort of ship with all the extras as well. There are enough side pieces to make a whole ship on their own, although it would be very thin!
But what about the weapons? Well we’ve gone for some Resistance classics, but it’s still worth identifying them, and showing exactly how many hardpoints there are around.
The Pathfinder here has 4 Hardpoints to use, and has used them all on guns! With 2 Mass Driver turrets and 2 Hybrid Gun broadsides, it’s ready for anything. Good Lock values and high rates of fire will see this through. Don’t forget that when you buy a single broadside, you’re actually getting a left and a right for double firepower. You just have to line up the shots well.
The studio Explorer class has 6 Hardpoints to choose from, and has gone with a bit of a mix. It’s mostly attack power with a crazy 4 Mass Driver array at the front (there are two more on the back).
The sides have Bulk Landers & Fire Ships for 1 more Hardpoint. Although the launch can technically go on any “open” rail mount (the detail is already sculpted on), it’s worth distinguishing them with an obvious paint scheme like these hazard stripes.
Finally this one also has a Scanner Array on the back. There are a few parts that are useful for this upgrade – the long antennae and also the large scanner pieces that are on the “wings” of this ship.
Finally we have the Coloniser. With a massive 8 Hardpoints, this ship can have a lot of upgrades. We’ve gone for an all-out attack ship, although some extra launch is always handy – you could potentially max out your Launch cap on one ship!
On this one we went nuts with 4 Heavy Vent Cannons. These are really powerful, but this Coloniser is going to be taking a lot of self-inflicted damage. It has a lot of Hull, but that’ll go down quickly.
We added 2 sets of Torpedoes, which comes in pairs. And for when they’re gone, we’ve put on 2 pairs of NC-16 Missiles on the broadsides. That’s a lot of Close Action firepower once this trundling ship gets close enough.
Options, Options, Options
Those are just a few options though! You can make basically infinite space ships out of these, so we gave some to the TTCombat staff around the warehouse to see what they came up with. We’ll hand it over to them to have a word about their ships.
Matt W – Arceus (Explorer class)
I wanted to design a ship that was more focused on travelling across the stars and exploring rather than just all in for a fight. Of course the ship is able to hold its own if needs be.
I had a lot of fun putting the Acreus together, I found that building the middle first really helped bring the shape together to what it is and I’m really pleased with the result.
Laura – Gorhel Efander (Coloniser+ class)
“Gorhel Efander” is Cornish (Kernewek) for “spaceship”. I’m not that fussed on the rules of the ship (there’s no Cornish for WYSIWYG), so I decided to build whatever came to mind, and used as many parts as I could! The possibilities really are endless, so it took a while to settle on the final design.
This kit is a lot of fun and I look forward to painting it in Cornish colours – it’ll get there dreckly!
David & Gene – Scorpio Ray X1 (Coloniser class) & The Pike (Explorer class)
Me and my son decided to build a ship each, using just the one kit. There was a lot of choice! Gene decided to build a ship that looked like a scorpion, splitting the nose pieces apart to make a pincer shape, and building the ship around that. He named it Scorpio Ray X1.
With the other parts I figured out that I can make a ship that resembled a fish. It’s long and thin, and that’s how the Pike was born!
Matt G – S-Kicker (Coloniser class)
I want to start off by saying that I had so much fun making this ship, I felt like I was a kid again playing with lego and making some super mega ultra spaceship.
I spent along time just laying out the pieces and coming up with different styles before settling on the final design, usually when making a minature you have to follow a picture or guide in order to make a specific ship but with this thing I was able to have the freedom to create something that feels totally unique which was a refreshing change of pace.
Lewis – Sweet Pea (Pathfinder class)
I made this ship a little while ago to take to Salute, and now it’s going to be joining my own fleet. Sweet Pea is a tiny little Pathfinder, sent out to mine valuable materials out of larger asteroids.
It’s equipped with a Scanner Array (for detecting minerals), a Missile Battery (for blowing up large asteroids to get into the juicy middles), Fighters & Bombers (for extracting) and finally a Heavy Vent Cannons turret for protection – mining minerals is a dangerous game, and pirates are always after this Pathfinder!
I wanted to make a sleek looking craft, using just a few pieces. It’s amazing how purposeful this new kit can look when assembled carefully – I really think this one ended up looking like it was straight off the rack.
Hopefully that gives everyone a bit of inspiration for building your own dreadnoughts! These kits are so flexible and we’re really excited to see what everyone builds!
The Coloniser Dreadnought will be going up for pre-order later today on the TTCombat webstore, so stop back then when we’ll have all the details on how to pick up your box of parts and get building.
Cronch wrote:Maybe, but i'm not willing to absolve every single sin by the way of "this isn't dave".
No absolution, just a plausible explanation.
beast_gts wrote:Resistance Dreadnought: How to Build?
Well that's reassuringly modular. And they WERE being less inventive for the studio builds. There's some damned cool arrangements from the staff.
Interesting though the weapon limitations. So you can't build EVERY possible weapon loadout from one box, you'd need at least two. Still wish they'd done some playtesting with it rather than "it's probs broken, lol". Lotta talk about all the modeling, yet again, no mention whatsoever anywhere about someone actually playing a game of DFC with it.
beast_gts wrote:
2 large Dropfleet bases (you should be able to build 2 Pathfinders in one set)
That makes it a more interesting kit...
Also, anyone brave enough to try magnetising it? :-)
If the MDF spacers work like I think they say they do, you're going to need some big ass magnets to hold it all together.
I take back every bad thing I've said about the kit, thats fantastic. Weird that they chose to lead with what they did instead of showcasing the kit with the other builds they previewed today. fething fantastic capability there, I'll be picking up 2-3 (eventually) just to mess around with.
The resistance ships in general are highly modular (though not *this* modular). The Space stations are also very modular (probably just as much as this is). Other factions - not so much, they mostly take after the Battlefleet gothic model where the base hulls for cruisers are all identical but you can swap up a number of different bits across several hardpoints to vary things up. Currently the UCM cruiser line for example can build something like 7 different cruiser classes from one kit, though there are another 80-90 possible permutations that arent supported by rules.
TTC just nuked the old Hawk forums. Internet Archive has most, but not all of the threads, unfortunately. RIP. There were a lot of good posts I've linked and still reference to this day, blown out of existence.
And before someone recommends the FB group, no, feth that cesspool, 'engagement' driven broken threading with arbitrary presentation is no replacement for a long form discussion or debate like a forum fosters.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Wow.
I never intend to play the game but I might buy a resistance fleet for fun.
Are all the ships in the game like this?
Short answer - kinda but more no than yes.
As noted above all fleets have frigates and cruisers that are built from multiple part plastic kits. After that many other ships either have one build, or one or two optional part builds. The Resistance has a bit more variety in build because its basically two themes - one sleek an efficient, the other more rag-tag (though some of that is conveyed more with the paint than the actual sculpt on some models). So the resistance tends to be a touch more varied and this dreadnought is basically unmatched by the other races and is only equalled with the modular space station kits.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’m not a player of this game, but resin aside that is a really, really sweet kit!
If it was Resin I might’ve been tempted, but I completely loathe working with Resin because I hate working with Resin.
Still nice to see an incredibly modular kit.
Have you had much experience with resin outside Forgeworld or Spartan Games? Because not all resin is so horrible to work with.
I’ve had mostly good experiences with TTCombat resin, but have had to request replacement parts for a few miscast items. Anything that looks too daunting to fix? Get a replacement part. However, for the most part I’ve only had to wash the resin, scrape off mold lines and cut flash, and been able to assemble their ships without much fuss. A few times I’ve forgotten to wash the parts, and they still went together well.
Of course, I say that but I’m still planning to convert some of the plastic space station bits into a Colonizer just to do it.
So i have a question,
I have been thinking about buying a Resistance army to flesh out and make a display army, just something cool.
But, I have noticed, not only are things sold out, but it seems some things i 100% know used to be there dont exist. Like the special character tanks(I remember a special alexander) and it seems like the barrel bomber doesnt exist.
are the characters gone from the game?
hotsauceman1 wrote: But, I have noticed, not only are things sold out, but it seems some things i 100% know used to be there dont exist. Like the special character tanks(I remember a special alexander) and it seems like the barrel bomber doesnt exist. are the characters gone from the game?
The named characters don't have special rules anymore, but 'generic' rules for them exist. A lot of the kits have been rolled together, so the Barrel Bomber is now part of the Lifthawk kit which can "make either a Lifthawk Dropship, Lifthawk Troopship or the Barrel Bomber."
They're also doing alternative sculpts for a few models - Resistance have the Kalium versions and UCM have Titania ones.
hotsauceman1 wrote: So i have a question,
I have been thinking about buying a Resistance army to flesh out and make a display army, just something cool.
But, I have noticed, not only are things sold out, but it seems some things i 100% know used to be there dont exist. Like the special character tanks(I remember a special alexander) and it seems like the barrel bomber doesnt exist.
are the characters gone from the game?
I believe a lot of the character tanks got bundled into the basic kits for those tank chassis (chassises?) as options. The barrel bomber is an option in a dropship kit that includes other options now.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
caladancid wrote: I would like to get in on the game. So many things out of stock in the TTCombat store, and not sure where else to look!
In the US, Game Kastle and KickAss Mail Order are the sites recommended the most.
Ahh so that makes sense, but i swaere there used to be more, i dont see any of the resistance hovercraft or troops for sale,
So weird, did they drop alot?
A lot of kits are also being redesigned and will come back at a later date. Additionally, some units no longer exist, e.g. the Fireblade is no longer a support unit, but a turret option for the katana light tank
I love DFC and DZC but the new TTcombat kits all show a very shoddy workmanship with their 3d printed masters. They must not understand how to tune their 3d printer because the results are just tragic. You can see it clearly on the sample painted ships on the site of any post-hawk wargames kits. Breaks my heart. I'm an amateur and even I've figured out how to resolve these problems on my budget printer. Not only that, but you also have all the regular resin concerns.
My hope is they move to selling stls or fix their gak. Still, I've bought way too many kits across all my favorite factions. Excellent designs, meh execution.
axotl wrote: I love DFC and DZC but the new TTcombat kits all show a very shoddy workmanship with their 3d printed masters. They must not understand how to tune their 3d printer because the results are just tragic. You can see it clearly on the sample painted ships on the site of any post-hawk wargames kits.
Can you elaborate on that a bit? Specific ship, specific problem?
My complaints about TTC blisters lately have been about dumb gate and vent placement. Razorowms: vent in the front center face of one of the models. Bomb Bus: roof platforms have massive, like a centimeter thick, gates in them, which is hard to cut off without snapping it and tearing a hole in the platform. PHR Njord: missile pods had a vent in the end of every single missile. That's 16 missile heads with cents only a millimeter smaller than the rest of the detail, which was just about impossible to shave off and retain a smooth curve, so the front of the damned model now looks all janky.
axotl wrote: I love DFC and DZC but the new TTcombat kits all show a very shoddy workmanship with their 3d printed masters. They must not understand how to tune their 3d printer because the results are just tragic. You can see it clearly on the sample painted ships on the site of any post-hawk wargames kits.
Can you elaborate on that a bit? Specific ship, specific problem?
My complaints about TTC blisters lately have been about dumb gate and vent placement. Razorowms: vent in the front center face of one of the models. Bomb Bus: roof platforms have massive, like a centimeter thick, gates in them, which is hard to cut off without snapping it and tearing a hole in the platform. PHR Njord: missile pods had a gate in the end of every single missile. That's 16 missile heads with gates only a mm smaller than the rest of the detail, which was just about impossible to shave off and retain a smooth curve, so the front of the damned model now looks all janky.
Yeah I've seen this from them before - really odd gate placement and also the annoyance that they put ridges on the edges of most scourge models right where the mould line is going to be.
axotl wrote: I love DFC and DZC but the new TTcombat kits all show a very shoddy workmanship with their 3d printed masters. They must not understand how to tune their 3d printer because the results are just tragic. You can see it clearly on the sample painted ships on the site of any post-hawk wargames kits. Breaks my heart. I'm an amateur and even I've figured out how to resolve these problems on my budget printer. Not only that, but you also have all the regular resin concerns.
My hope is they move to selling stls or fix their gak. Still, I've bought way too many kits across all my favorite factions. Excellent designs, meh execution.
What results, specifically, are you talking about? I’ve got a shameful amount of TTCombat resin and haven’t noticed any step lines or misprint effects or anything like that. They do sometimes put the gates for the resin mold directly into high-detail areas or other places hard to clean, which is annoying but manageable but also not a result of their 3D printing.
Ive purchased several thousand USD worth of DZC/DFC kits since 2019 (after I came back from a hiatus that started shortly after the DFC kickstarter), probably $500 worth just this year. Can't say I share the same opinion about quality - the gates are annoying but with some care in removal they aren't anything more than a minor nuisance (granted I dont play scourge or resistance).
I've only encountered two kits that have had visible hallmarks of 3d printing - and in both cases I bought multiple copies of the kit and only found the indicators present on one of them - and in one case it was because it seems that they literally sold me a 3d printed master (or at least parts of one, 80% of it was typical cast resin, but one piece was very clearly photoresin, not sure what happened there), not sure why the striations were present in the second kit unless they repaired the old at some point and I got kits from two different batches, one pre and one post.
Not sure I could tell you which one was the photoresin as I think I painted that one already - but I believe that was a PHR Poseidon. Drawing a blank on the one with the visible striations, I'll have to take a look to see if I can find it and post some photos.
Overread wrote: I've not picked up any of their newest models - have you got any examples to show ?
No pics, I did my best and moved on. But I've got a wide mix of Hawk and TTC blisters, and the Hawk molds had totally different vents and gates, and frankly just better placement altogether.
TTC has talked before on their blogs about how they run a shop where they just grab random employees and tell them to 'get er dun', and frankly it shows. They need mold masters (course, that means paying people more than rando mc'other-duties-as-assigned), they need print managers; they need a fething editor.
Give me a few weeks for an order to arrive and I'll post pics of some raw UCM resin ships.
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BobtheInquisitor wrote:I’ve got a shameful amount of TTCombat resin and haven’t noticed any step lines or misprint effects or anything like that. T
I've got a model from them that's just straight out of a printer. Strikehawk tiltrotor with visible steps on the smooth curves all over the top of the model. It's not photographing worth a damn though.
And I'm certain it's not resin because I misaligned one of the engines, tried to break it loose with acetone, and the model started dissolving at the joint. ABS as a guess.
I swear I remember another having visible steps but was definitely resin. One of my Lifthawks, but I also did so much weathering that you can't see it anymore.
Weirdly, one of my lifthawks also looked like it got acetone fogged. It had this glossy smooth melted look all over, was an absolute bitch to scrub clean and get primer to stick to it.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Durandal just posted an awesome 70s-inspired Resistance fleet if you want see the models in action.
Thanks this made my day.
Slyphic, I've got most of the Hawk Wargames Dropfleet and TTcombat dropfleet ships, and I've only noticed resin casting failures on a handful of them. Mostly some bubbles that needed filling, and a sinkage on the side of the Aldrin. I can't speak to the Dropzone stuff, don't have any.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Durandal just posted an awesome 70s-inspired Resistance fleet if you want see the models in action.
Thanks this made my day.
I'm getting 50/50 Stewart Cowley Terran Trade Authority and Homeworld Taiidani. Awesome fleet btw. I tried a similar yellow with red accents job on a UCM cruiser and wasn't at all happy with it. Yours turned out much better.
I'm getting 50/50 Stewart Cowley Terran Trade Authority and Homeworld Taiidani. Awesome fleet btw. I tried a similar yellow with red accents job on a UCM cruiser and wasn't at all happy with it. Yours turned out much better.
Got it in one. I used minitare air brush paints with GW fire dragon orange and then yellow, since I had those leftover from some Mechanicum. My experience has been that the fine detail on these models really needs an air brush for the base layers or you lose the very fine panel lines.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Durandal just posted an awesome 70s-inspired Resistance fleet if you want see the models in action.
Thanks this made my day.
Slyphic, I've got most of the Hawk Wargames Dropfleet and TTcombat dropfleet ships, and I've only noticed resin casting failures on a handful of them. Mostly some bubbles that needed filling, and a sinkage on the side of the Aldrin. I can't speak to the Dropzone stuff, don't have any.
Worth every bit of praise. A Chris Foss/Terran Trade Authority style fleet is a heck of a challenge to set for yourself and you pulled it off.
Overread wrote: I've not picked up any of their newest models - have you got any examples to show ?
No pics, I did my best and moved on. But I've got a wide mix of Hawk and TTC blisters, and the Hawk molds had totally different vents and gates, and frankly just better placement altogether.
TTC has talked before on their blogs about how they run a shop where they just grab random employees and tell them to 'get er dun', and frankly it shows. They need mold masters (course, that means paying people more than rando mc'other-duties-as-assigned), they need print managers; they need a fething editor.
Give me a few weeks for an order to arrive and I'll post pics of some raw UCM resin ships.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BobtheInquisitor wrote:I’ve got a shameful amount of TTCombat resin and haven’t noticed any step lines or misprint effects or anything like that. T
I've got a model from them that's just straight out of a printer. Strikehawk tiltrotor with visible steps on the smooth curves all over the top of the model. It's not photographing worth a damn though.
And I'm certain it's not resin because I misaligned one of the engines, tried to break it loose with acetone, and the model started dissolving at the joint. ABS as a guess.
I swear I remember another having visible steps but was definitely resin. One of my Lifthawks, but I also did so much weathering that you can't see it anymore.
Weirdly, one of my lifthawks also looked like it got acetone fogged. It had this glossy smooth melted look all over, was an absolute bitch to scrub clean and get primer to stick to it.
I just jumped in and got a bunch of Resistance (both fleet and commander). The battlecruiser was warped crooked on the main body, and every single sprue of infantry in the starter box had at least one broken off at the feet. That was fun to fix....
I am going to keep at it, but not the greatest introduction to model quality from them.
caladancid wrote: I just jumped in and got a bunch of Resistance (both fleet and commander).
...
every single sprue of infantry in the starter box had at least one broken off at the feet.
Resistance infantry is the worst for snapped ankles. Even back when Hawk was casting in metal, you'd see problems, but with metal a single bad leg didn't doom the model like it does with resin. But TTC switching them to resin has certainly exacerbated the problem. Berserkers are even more prone to breakage than basic Fighters, as well as missing hand weapons. Veterans and sappers I've never had a problem with. The larger stuff like Freeriders and ATVs are perfectly fine.
Resistance Fighter, missing a chunk of lower leg. But the remaining one being metal is able to support it, and I put him in the middle of the base for protection and haven't had any breakage yet.
3 packs of metal Hawk Berserkers, a few snapped off at the ankle, a few missing the ends of weapons or hands, a few other problems. All told, I was able to mix and match to get 8 out of 12 bases, and the leftovers are casualties or other decoration.
Excited to hear they're moving from an, ahem, 'artisanal' casting process to one of specialized machine operators and mold makers. It'll be better for everyone, customers stockists employees and TTC, as long as they retain employees long enough to build expertise. Fingers crossed.
I also hope once they get their domestic stock comfortable, they'll resume shipping en masse over the Atlantic so my local can order from their US distributor again.
It's kinda neat how the MDF company made MDF boxes for their molds.
Advent Calendar 07
Load up the air brush, we’ve got some models to paint!
Yep, you guessed it we’ve got some brand new Dropzone Commander products for you. Let’s get that door open and see what’s coming!
Behind door 7 in the advent calendar is 5 brand new Dropzone Commander box sets. One for each faction! Each factions box set includes at least 1 brand new unit.
The Armour Battlegroups are the perfect addition for a new player to add onto their starter army. As the set contains all the compulsory choices in the Armour Battlegroup, with Auxiliary units for support.
Shaltari Swift Armour Battlegroup
The Shaltari Swift Armour Battlegroup contains. 3 Atlatl Gravtanks which can teleport friends and foes around the tabletop. Alternatively, you can build them as Arrowhead Gravtanks for all your anti air needs. A Puma Sonic Warstrider provides heavy firepower and the Alligator helps your Gravtanks move faster. For transport, the Eden Gate teleports your vehicles into battle with speed!
UCM Combined Armour Battlegroup
The UCM Combined Armour Battlegroup contains: 4 Polecat Buggies which are armed, with Twin Nemesis Miniguns for anti- infantry fire. Or Aggressor Cannons for dealing with opponents vehicles. All of which can be transported in a Vulture Dropship. Alongside this, the set includes 2 Gladius Heavy Tanks, which bring substantial firepower to the battlefield. With its Twin Avenger Railguns or Quake Accelerated Mortars. All of these ground units are accompanied by 2 Falcon Light Gunships for aerial support.
Scourge Rapid Armour Battlegroup
Next up we have the Scourge Rapid Armour Battlegroup that includes: A Harbinger Troopship transports 4 Spectre Skimtanks. These make up the bulk of this force. Armed with long ranged Plasma Lances or the terrifying Photon Blasters. Which can shoot through walls. In conjunction to this 2 Corsair Interceptors provide support for a Savager Laser Barge.
Resistance Platoon Armour Battlegroup
The Resistance Platoon Armour Battlegroup, consists of 2 Patton AFVs, which are armed for anti-light or anti heavy vehicle fire. A Napoleon Heavy Tank makes short work of infantry, vehicles or scenery. Thanks to its Banisher Rotary Cannons. In addition 2 Zhukov AA Tanks provide deadly anti air firepower. The transport option for this set is 2 Lifthawk dropships.
PHR Advanced Armour Battlegroup
The PHR Advanced Armour Battlegroup, contains 4 Diana Jetskimmers. These are perfect for destroying large enemies by combing their Molecular Agitator. Alternatively you can build them as Aurora Jetskimmers. Which provide excellent shields. For transport the battlegroup uses 2 Neptune Dropships which will carry 2 Odin Heavy Walkers and 2 Erebos EM Walkers.
That’s it for todays advent calender post, you can expect to see these with one of the 1st Dropzone releases in the new year.
If this has sparked your curiosity. You can check out the rest of the Dropzone Commander range here. If you have something of ours that you have painted and want to show it off. Email us photos over to info@ttcombat.com as we would love to see it!
Holiday Shipping
See you next Tuesday for another Dropzone Calendar reveal.
I'm really excited to see what the new Shaltari tanks are capable of! I really like how the brief description sounds like. Lots of opportunities for some cheeky play.
As a collector of all factions except PHR, I'm sure to grab a box of each.
Our first Dropfleet door is off to a swift start – there’s some brand new ships on the way!
Behind the 5th door is DropFleet!
Cutters are making their way into Dropfleet Commander! These monitor sized ships are their polar opposite. Incredibly fast, highly manoeuvrable, but also much more fragile. Each blister for each faction will come with a pair of options. Either a support, or an offensive loadout!
As the Reconquest continues, each faction is bringing more and more weird stuff into the fight, just what exactly does that tuning fork do
This class of ship is brand new to Dropfleet and should open up a few new tactical options for Commanders. While the rules aren’t finalised yet, we’ve got a good idea of what these small ships will be doing.
This Scourge Cutter for instance comes with an energy siphon, a device capable of hampering your opponents attempts to shoot at you. I can’t say much more than that though, but we’ll be talking in depth closer to release!
We’ve got a lot planned for Dropfleet in 2022 and these are just the start. In fact, cutters are the first of the releases we have planned in 2022! Keep an eye out for these here on TTComunity in the new year when we’ll have more info for you!
Todays calendar door sees the return of some classic scenarios!
As the universe of Dropzone Commander has moved forwards, we’ve brought new conflicts and new alliances into the lore. We’ve also moved from purely printed rules to a living ruleset, but this has sometimes meant leaving certain things behind in older books. Important things like scenarios!
Behind our door today we have some returning scenarios. Updated for the current rules!
These used to be found in the Reconquest 1 book, but we’re making them free online for anyone who wants to use them in their games of Dropzone Commander.
Not just scenarios! We’ve updated the rules for the Monorail and Aegis Orbital Defence Laser and included them in this scenario pack. It’s a good thing too, as several of the scenarios make use of these key pieces of scenery!
You can find these scenarios and more in our resources section on the TTCombat store!
Welcome to the last week of Dropzone Commander in this years Advent Calendar.
Today is our final Dropzone post of the calendar and we’ve saved the best ’til last, lets get that door open!
We’ve all been waiting for these absolute units for a long time now. We’re excited to share a glimpse at the UCM Behemoth; today out for some live-fire field exercise so it will be ready to obliterate the enemy.
This gargantuan killing machine comes in two flavours; America and Russia. Each boasts an armament consisting of a healthy supply of Hailfire munitions, a Vindicator MK2 Battery and a pair of Mass Driver or Stormcrow Cannons. Run for cover!
But we’d also like to share a rare insight into the prototyping and pre-mastering stage of production; 3D Printing!
We ensure that models are cut in convenient places – not only for you – but for the production team to even be able to pull castings from the silicone moulds. In the case of these Behemoths we have to make sure they even fit on the build plate of the 3D Printer in the first place!
Don’t worry if it appears to be lacking the usual detail you would expect, this is just a rapid prototype. Typically we print our parts at 25 microns, allowing for extraordinary detail. However if we just need to test something during development we can print at 100 microns. While that reduces the fine details, it preserves the size while massively cutting down on printing time. Even on the quickest setting these guns took around 24 hours to print!
But don’t fret, when this towering nightmare in metal hits retail it will be packed with all the fine details you would expect from Dropzone Commander.
From sculpting, to printing, to mastering and production; it’s a long co-operative process to bring these models to you and we’re excited for these Behemoths to finally join the battle for Earth!
Is this jumping the shark for Dropfleet? I thought the point of the game was to have things dropped in? Admittedly I've been out of the loop for many years though.
A bit - some sections of the fanbase have been demanding bigger and bigger things (and the behemoths were first teased years ago).
I remember seeing the behemoths but they seemed more in line with the game's ethos but maybe I'm remembering that wrong. Other than maybe the rebellion one, I thought they either could fly under their own power or could be dropped in by the biggest dropships.
The Behemoths go against the hard pragmatic military Sci Fi approach of the Hawk era. The fluff even has fun with this, stating the UCM Behemoth was more effective as a recruitment tool than a weapon of war (Iseewhatyoudidthere.gif). Still, that’s a damn sexy miniature looking for a game of Horizon Wars to fulfill it.
PS: “We’ve all been waiting for these absolute units for a long time now.” Someone been reading the dialogue from my slashfic?
I was really looking forward to see the behemoths, not necessarily for gaming purpose. They appear to not fit the more grounded SciFi of the Dropzone universe - but a friend of mine had a great head canon to remedy this:
The behemoths are actually more mobile Anti-Ship weapons design to shoot down incoming strike carriers. This makes them valuable military assets. Their capabilities during games of Dropzone don't really contradict that, as far as I know, and it makes much more sense.
Brickfix wrote: I was really looking forward to see the behemoths, not necessarily for gaming purpose. They appear to not fit the more grounded SciFi of the Dropzone universe - but a friend of mine had a great head canon to remedy this:
The behemoths are actually more mobile Anti-Ship weapons design to shoot down incoming strike carriers. This makes them valuable military assets. Their capabilities during games of Dropzone don't really contradict that, as far as I know, and it makes much more sense.
So the BFE book described two chassis of Behemoth, Lights and Heavies. The UCM have a light behemoth that is explicitly an anti-strike carrier platform. A low profile quad-walker with a giant AA cannon on its back, and some supporting weapons on sponsons.
But there's been literally nothing said about the lights since BFE dropped in mid 2019. Not a single mention in all that time. They're solely concentrating on the heavies, and yeah, there's a cohort of players excited for them, but there's at least an equally large portion of them that are vehemently opposed to their vary existence. Especially as TTC maintains these aren't going to be scenario pieces, but units for standard tournament legal games.
slyphic wrote: A low profile quad-walker with a giant AA cannon on its back, and some supporting weapons on sponsons.
So that art is the UCM-light, not the Resistance one?
Correct. The UCM light looks like an omnidirectional quad walker, the Resistance ones look more like a dog, with a clear front and rear and treads on the back of the legs to let them speed about.
Resistance are supposed to have ICBMs and big lasers as weapon options. UCM/PHR have the big rail guns, Scourge have War of the Worlds tentacles and heat beams, and Shaltari are big asian dragons.
Behind our very last 2021 door lies some forthcoming Dropfleet goodies, and it’s something people have been asking for for a while now…
Dave has been a busy bee in the Alumnia shipyards, building some new space stations. Well, maybe not in those shipyards, since these new space stations are a little more exotic.
This is a brand new PHR space station (as if you couldn’t guess)!
This new resin kit is hot off of Dave’s design desk (seriously, it hasn’t even made it’s way to the 3D printer yet), and embodies everything PHR! From the circular platform to the tall, sleekly armoured spire, it’s undoubtedly an adandonist hub.
The underside is filled with detail, and plenty of guns as well! If that cluster of missiles on the bottom wasn’t enough to deter you. And if you’re not really into missiles…
How about some burnthrough lasers instead? Mounted on a swivel, this is sure to dissuade your foes from getting close to sovereign PHR territory.
Humans get all the good stuff! What about us space hedgehogs??
Well, bold title person, we have an Xmas treat for you too!
Shaltari are getting their own space station kit too! For all the sleek simplicity of the PHR one, the Shaltari have complex winding patterns and (hard to show off) angles – perfect for you spiky little gremlins!
Interestingly, the Shaltari space station also has a variant, but rather than just weapons, it trades out the core.
Those tall resin spires are still the same, but with a simple new core and ring at the top (who knows what that could be?), you’ve got a completely different look to your space station. Like a blooming flower, this one opens up to provide a nice counter to the tightly packed, heavily armed one above.
MERRY XMAS!
And that’s it for us this year! The last advent door is open, and we are now free from our blood pact with the eldritch advent gods!
The TTCombat warehouse will be closed for the next week while we all enjoy some much needed time off. The webstore will still be taking orders, but anything you place will not be processed until the new year. We’re opening our doors again on Tuesday 4th January.
The TTCommunity team (it’s not really a team – it’s just us regular design team people) will be taking a break for the start of January too, but we’ll be back in a few weeks with our regular posts, and back to plenty of new releases, starting with a whole lot of stuff we’ve been showing off all this month! 2022 has a lot of new things on the horizon, so let’s all stay safe in the meantime so we can look forward to a new year full of hobby fun.
Lastly a big thank you to everyone that’s supported TTCombat in the past year. After 2020 it’s been another year of ups and downs, but for everyone that’s made it through: well done! And for everyone that’s painted a model, built some scenery, posted on the fan pages, followed along at home, been patient with new releases, or even – gasp – played a game in the last year: thank you for supporting our little company and allowing us to keep making cool new models, games, and scenery! Take care, and we’ll see you all in the new year.
hotsauceman1 wrote: For some reason I thought the resistance behemoth was on train tracks and a giant gun
I've not kept brilliantly up with their news/facebook so that could have been teased as concept art or in lore at some stage. Or when fans heard about "big gun" and then went down the path of looking at real world comparisons like the Schwerer Gustav (the huge Nazi artillery gun pulled by several locomotives)
hotsauceman1 wrote: For some reason I thought the resistance behemoth was on train tracks and a giant gun
comparisons like the Schwerer Gustav
Dave was quoted at one of the pre-pandemic convetions that the big gun on the Resistance Behemoth is intentionally 1 scale cm larger calibre than the Gustav. So yeah, it's an apt comparison.
I find myself utterly bored by yet more Behemoth teasing. Talk to me about rules, about fixing the core of the damned game.
And post a god damned batrep TTC! I refuse to believe anyone there actually plays full games of DZC anymore, barring physical evidence.
It’s the first WIP Wednesday of the year, catch it before it flies past!
This very first WIP Wed we’ve got the fastest little ships ever. You may have seen them previously in the advent calendar, and now they’ve made their way to Fin’s painting desk…
It’s the Cutters!
PHR
We only have a couple to show today… first of all we have the PHR. These sleek craft are possibly the smoothest ever! So thin!
Fin is still in the middle of painting them, you can see that one has metals already done, and the other is awaiting the metallic coat. Neither have their additional weapon options yet, they’re being painted separately.
Shaltari
For our second one, we have a Shaltari Cutter, and it’s basically finished!
This weird looking one caused a lot of questions in the render, so hopefully these pictures will shed a little light on the elegant build.
With three prongs and a gun on the front, there’s no confusing how fast this ship is going to be!
We’ll have more information on the Cutters in the future, so keep an eye out right here on TTCommunity for all the latest information. In the meantime you can head over to the TTCombat webstore to have a look at all the Dropfleet Commander ships available. And don’t forget to email any pictures of your painted fleets to info@ttcombat.com for us to feature right here in a future Monday Motivation!
New Standard Units?! It’s a Dropzone Post-Christmas Miracle!
We have some exciting new releases for Dropzone players this week, and with new releases come new rules!
The first Battlegroup boxes are on their way to pre-order this Friday, and it’s an exciting time for Dropzone players both new and old.
New players will find the new Armour Battlegroups the perfect expansion to their burgeoning army. If you already have a Starter Army, these new sets give you a whole new Battlegroup. All of them offer some different and unusual units for your battles.
For existing players, these Battlegroups contain brand new Standard choices! Other than the ocassional one here and there, this is the first big Standard release since Reconquest! Standard choices are the most populous in a Dropzone army, so you can use these new units to make up the centre of your fighting force. Oh and don’t worry – they’ll be available online separately too.
Of course, you’re here to see what they do, and we’re definitely going to tell you!
UCM
First of all, the angels in green, the UCM have not one but two new options this week. The Polecat Buggy is a new Standard choice, and can be carried in the new Vulture Dropship.
As you can see by its stats, the Polecat is very fast! This chonky boi is as quick as a Wolverine, and better armoured to boot. It’s a little more expensive in points, but that extra point of armour makes it a fair bit more survivable.
You get a choice of weapons on the Polecat: a Twin Nemesis Minigun or an Aggressor Cannon.
The Minigun might lack stopping power, but with 6 shots it sure puts out a lot of attacks! Energy 4 isn’t super strong, but ignoring Body and Soft cover means that this thing will shred any infantry bold enough to go to the edge of a Garrison. The Miniguns also have Focus-1 as well, which means with enough shots you can bring down anything if you really need to.
The Aggressor Cannon trades the cover bonuses for a higher starting Energy, which means it can easily deal with light vehicles or scenery. The big bonus here is 3 Shots with Focus-2, which put it right up to dealing with medium vehicles. Get particularly lucky (or use some Command Cards at the right time) and you can take on heavy tanks if necessary.
Both options are very versatile, which is a nice contrast to the traditional Sabre with its 1 Shot high Energy weapon.
The Vulture is pretty much what you’d expect from a dropship! It’s twice the size of a Raven, so can carry twice as much stuff. In a feat of UCM engineering brilliance, the Polecats actually take up the same space as Wolverines, so a Vulture can carry 4.
You can also build the Vulture as a Troopship, which gives you the option of flying 4 units of Infantry in at speed without the need for a Bear or Panda.
And for a little more versatility you can arm your Vulture with an AA Battery! This is the same type found on a Phoenix, and the only way to get AA weapons on your transports. Nice!
Scourge
The Scourge have one new Standard unit to add to their ranks. It’s a little smaller than they’re used to.
The Spectre Skimtank is closer to a bike than a full tank. In fact it’s a very similar size to a Wolverine! It’s small and has pretty low armour, but wow is it fast! With a Move of 12″ and Evasion +3, this nippy little thing can get around the board mostly on its own. You might not even need to put it in a Harbinger Troopship!
Like the Polecat, the Spectre also gets a choice of weapons.
A Plasma Lance will be familiar to Scourge players using Reavers. It’s literally the same thing, just one of them! Spectres are too small for turrets meaning they’re a bit more limited in their aiming, but are usually fast enough to target what they want. Plasma Lances are longer ranged than the Cannons on Hunters, but a little weaker. Still, Energy 10 will do most jobs!
Alternatively you could go for the much weirder option with the Photon Blaster. This short ranged weapon has double the shots, but only Energy 6. Luckily enough it has the Penetrative rule on overdrive, always damaging on a 5 or 6. The biggest draw for the Photo Blaster though is that it’s Indirect! This weird weapon shoots straight through walls, allowing your Spectres to target opponents with no chance of them returning fire. Although less accurate when you can’t see, you can always pair some Spectres with Minders or Emeritus Drones to provide up to date targeting information. A deadly combo that keeps your Spectres out of harm’s way.
PHR
The Abandonists aren’t going without new units either, adding a new Standard choice to their already bumper selection. You can also build this new one as a Support choice if you like!
The Diana Jetskimmer is a little quicker than an Angelos, and as a hybrid jet/anti-grav skimmer it’s even better at evading fire. However these tanks simply don’t have the bulk of the Angelos, coming in with only 1 Damage point.
But tanks are all about the guns, right? And the Diana has a crazy one. While little can match the simple stopping power of an Ares’ Railgun, the Diana takes a stranger approach. due to their Molecular Absorbers, Dianas can shoot into each other to overcharge their weapons. Energy 8 may not look like much, but Focus-3 quickly increases that number when they can combine shots together. In fact, they come in squads of up to 4, which means you can potentially get a single Energy 17 shot! That’s rather crazy, and probably overkill. With Devastator-3 against all Vehicles, the Diana is a big target hunter the likes of which we may not have seen before!
You could instead make your tank as the Aurora Jetskimmer. A Support choice, the Aurora trades firepower for shield assistance while keeping the same hull. The Shield Beamer increases or decreases Passive Countermeasures saves. It can even give units without a Passive save of their own! Target a friendly unit and watch them last the whole battle. Combine with some Odins or Zeus and you’ve got some incredibly survivable walkers. Alternatively you could target your opponents to strip them of their Passive saves. Take that Shaltari, the PHR are the new tricksy faction! Not many people know that PHR stands for Pranks Horseplay and Ruses.
Shaltari
Shaltari aren’t happy with all that silly PHR nonsense, so they’re here with two new units to put them back in their place.
The Atlatl and Arrowhead Gravtanks share the same hull. It’ll look familiar but different to Shaltari players. Slower than a Tomahawk, they instead focus on defence, upping their Passive saves to a massive 4+. That’s sure to be annoying!
And the Atlatl doesn’t stop there for annoyance! When it comes to weapons, this Gravtank doesn’t actually do any damage. But what it does is frustrate your opponent so much. Worth it.
The Atlatl is armed with a Teleport Beamer, which does exactly what it sounds like! In what has been called a “cruder, brute-force” appliance of their teleport technology, this weird weapon can teleport any unit, whether they’re ready for it or not! You can teleport friendly units a bit distance, or enemy units a shorter distance (while the traditional teleport web and Gate aren’t necessary, they do help). Great for getting a good sightline on your opponent or escaping from the retaliatory fire.
The Arrowhead is also a Standard choice, but goes in for AA fire instead. AA weapons on Standard choices are rather rare, and this one is kind of weird. The Energy Storm weapon uses the same interference as active Gates, but weaponises it! While this weapon can only Reaction Fire with a limited range, it has a couple of shots each, ignores Reaction Fire Accuracy penalties, and adds +1 Energy for every friendly unit in the squad, creating a – wait for it – storm of energy that will knock out any aircraft foolish enough to get close. Park a big squad of these in the middle of the board and watch your opponent sweat. Shaltnanigans are still strong!
Resistance
Last of all, the Resistance get a new Standard choice as well. It’s chunky and awesome.
The Patton AFV is the heaviest Standard choice available to Resistance commanders. If you’re looking to play a Kalium army or just want to trade up from scrappy Technicals, look no further! With Armour 13 and 2 Damage, this thing can survive longer than most battle tanks. It’s also rather fast on its wheels, nice! Put it in a Kraken or a Lifthawk – the choice is yours (which is a really rare thing for Resistance – for all the different transport types, the ability to go in more than one thing is quite rare).
As with most other Standard choices though, the Patton is all about the guns. It has a Grenade Launcher as standard, which fits the Resistance’s versatility. Then you have a choice of two guns.
The standard load-out is the Autocannon. It has 2 barrels, a decent range, and Energy 8. It also ignores all cover, which means you’re rarely getting many modifiers. At Energy 8 it can’t deal with the heaviest tanks in the game, but anything lower than that it can take on. Light vehicles are its main enemy, and scenery pieces don’t stand much luck either.
You can choose to upgrade the Autocannon to a Liberator Railgun, which will definitely help with your heavy vehicle troubles! This heavy prototype of the UCM railgun is expensive to manufacture but packs such a punch! Energy 10 is a welcome addition to Resistance Standard choices, and it does srits on 1 more than the damage roll, rather than 2. That means you can do crits to Armour 15! :O
Rules Updates
With these new Standard units, we’ve also taken the opportunity to update a couple other units that needed tweaks. These will all go live on Friday. Just a quick list:
Scourge walkers have been changed a bit! Less tough, but more resilient. Scourge armour isn’t all that strong, but it’s not like you can kill the crew!
The Eradicator’s Bio-Mortar has a new weapon mode!
The Harbinger Troopship can carry an extra Screamer (and plenty of Spectres).
PHR Jetskimmers have been made a little less agile.
Shaltari Gates now ignore the Reaction Fire penalties.
Firstborns have turned their Energy Swords down a bit.
Pungari have had some changes to reflect just how useless they are on their own, but fantastic as a horde!
Ronin now have a really good reason to upgrade their weapons.
Resistance Jacksons are cheaper, but a little easier to hurt.
UCM escaped the nerf-hammer this time! If you have feedback on any units, you can always let us know by filling out the feedback form on the Dropzone army builder!
Phew! That’s a big post with lots to go through. Have a look and let us know if you’re excited about new Standard choices! The Battlegroup Boxes (and individual units) are up for pre-order on Friday, so check back then for all the juicy details. In the meantime, there are already loads of Dropzone Commander kits on the TTCombat webstore, so head over there to check them out. And if you’ve painted some, make sure to email info@ttcombat.com – we’d love to see them and share them right here.
The PHR Advanced Armoured Battle group will be available for £35. Additionally the pack of 2 Diana Jetskimmers could be yours for £10.
The Resistance Platoon Armour Battlegroup will be available for £35. Furthermore the 2 Patton AFV’s will be selling in a separate £12 blister.
(Scourge Rapid Armour Battlegroup) will be available for £35. Alternatively you can pick up the 4 Spectre Skimtanks in a blister for £12.
This Shaltari Battlegroup will available for £35 as a complete set or alternatively buy just the three Atlatl Gravtanks in blister for £12.
The UCM Combined Armour Battlegroup will reconquer Earth for £35. The four Polecat Buggies can be purchased in blister for £15. Alternatively the two Vultures Dropships will also be available for £15.
Good value though. Scourge for instance, £35 boxset, £52 if bought as separate blisters.
For a new player with nothing in the box, say someone looking to expand a starter, they make a lot of sense.
I like the Vulture, but neither the sculpts nor stats for the polecat. The prospect of being able to carry more Wolverines or Longbows for cheaper is appealing, and it just has a nice profile, reminds me of the Alien dropship.
Scourge skimtanks, I've got a group order with a friend for the battle box, it seems a good balance of stats for the Plasma Lance. I'm annoyed by the Photon blaster just slapping some scifi name on some rules, it doesn't feel coherent to me. And the profile of it is too minimal for me.
I'm not a fan of how little differentiation there is between the new PHR models, but I like both concepts. The way the Aurora's rules are written is horrible. I get what it's supposed to do, but I'm not sure I could have worded it more poorly if I was deliberately trying to be obtuse. Also, the rest of the PHR skimmers losing a point of evasion because this one needs to be dodgier feels unnecessary.
I really like the Arrowhead's rules and concept, but I like the shape of the Atlatl better. And I despise yet more Shaltari teleporting weapons, it doesn't feel clever, just annoying to play against. There's no good defense against it, no clever counter play. It's a 'Gotcha!' game mechanic, and those can feth right off into the land of beer'n'pretzels.
Not a fan of the Patton at all. It's a better weapon with better transport options than the Hannibal in a better slot for a little less armor. But also, it's an AFV that doesn't transport troops which feels wrong. I don't like how it fits into the Resistance army composition at all.
I really like most of the bundles, I'm really tempted by the UCM and Scourge bundle even though I have a huge collection. I really like the lower armor units, I had hoped they would be especially interesting for smaller points size games.
I like the Vulture, but neither the sculpts nor stats for the polecat. The prospect of being able to carry more Wolverines or Longbows for cheaper is appealing, and it just has a nice profile, reminds me of the Alien dropship.
The Vulture is a really cool looking model, and opens up some very interesting options for UCM. Trading Speed for higher capacity creates competition with the Raven B, but the change to minimum squad sizes for Longbow/Crossbows and the option to only take two Polecats still keeps both valid. The Troopship option is interesting, too.
I'm not to sure on the Polecat yet, I like the model and the weapons does not invade the design space of any other UCM Standard Tank. The power is a bit more swingy, capping out at either Energy 11 or 14, but the average is Energy 9 / 10 at a far shorter Range. And the gun is far from optimal when shooting against any kind of skimmer. But it allows to fill a Standard slot for cheap and investing the points in some of the heavy UCM options.
Scourge skimtanks, I've got a group order with a friend for the battle box, it seems a good balance of stats for the Plasma Lance. I'm annoyed by the Photon blaster just slapping some scifi name on some rules, it doesn't feel coherent to me. And the profile of it is too minimal for me.
I agree on the name of the photon blaster, the rules appear totally different from what I would imagine a photon blaster. But the tanks themselves really feel like scourge tanks should feel. I'm not 100% sold on their transport option, but I can understand that adding to many different transport options to the game doesn't help, either. I would have preferred if there was an option to take a Screamer and a Spectre in the same battlegroup, but oh well.
I really like the Arrowhead's rules and concept, but I like the shape of the Atlatl better. And I despise yet more Shaltari teleporting weapons, it doesn't feel clever, just annoying to play against. There's no good defense against it, no clever counter play. It's a 'Gotcha!' game mechanic, and those can feth right off into the land of beer'n'pretzels.
I don't really see how this weapon is a 'Gotcha!' weapon, it hits very unreliable, and if they pop out of a gate they only hit on a 6. But with an armor of 12, there is a lot of stuff that can damage them, so they don't really survive in the open. Getting moved by 3 or 6 inches on average is annoying, but I think it is more likely that a Shaltari player will use its effect on his own vehicles, rather then any enemy vehicles.
The Arrowhead on the other hand ... It basically creates a "no transports" fly zone, and the additionally bonus to it's Energy for every other unit in the squad makes it really interesting as a tool of area denial. But any kind of Gunship with evasion can dare to ignore it. It adds more interesting mechanics to the table. I'm just not really convinced by their shape, they feel different then the other Shaltari skimmers.
Not a fan of the Patton at all. It's a better weapon with better transport options than the Hannibal in a better slot for a little less armor. But also, it's an AFV that doesn't transport troops which feels wrong. I don't like how it fits into the Resistance army composition at all.
I don't mind that the Patton has no transport capacity, it makes no sense in its slot in army composition and an AFV is just an armored vehicle with a gun, not necessarily an APC. But the experimental rail gun is really stupid. Why would I ever take a Hannibal. I can just take two of them in a Hovercraft, unload and drive to max range of 18 inch (10 + 2+ 6) and then hit anything on a 2+, with a better critical hit chance even against armor 15. And then the gun has 24 inch range. It is way to good in my opinion. Well and besides, the vehicle looks strange. The railgun option needs a complete overhaul, it makes any other tank in the army obsolete in my opinion. A possible fix would be to split the profiles into two units. The Patton AFV with the autocannon is a valid choice, but the railgun option should be moved to the heavy slot and receive some kind of rules change to no invalidate the Hannibal.
I can't really comment on the PHR skimmers, as I don't play PHR and don't really feel how they fit with the rest of the army. My regular opponent plays PHR, I'm interested in his opinion. I might have to see them in action before being able to really place their worth. Being able to interfere with passive saves does seem very interesting at the least.
I don't mind that the Patton has no transport capacity, it makes no sense in its slot in army composition and an AFV is just an armored vehicle with a gun, not necessarily an APC. But the experimental rail gun is really stupid. Why would I ever take a Hannibal. I can just take two of them in a Hovercraft, unload and drive to max range of 18 inch (10 + 2+ 6) and then hit anything on a 2+, with a better critical hit chance even against armor 15. And then the gun has 24 inch range. It is way to good in my opinion. Well and besides, the vehicle looks strange. The railgun option needs a complete overhaul, it makes any other tank in the army obsolete in my opinion. A possible fix would be to split the profiles into two units. The Patton AFV with the autocannon is a valid choice, but the railgun option should be moved to the heavy slot and receive some kind of rules change to no invalidate the Hannibal.
The Hannibal has always seemed to be in this weird spot where its comparable to other armies MBTs, but it is in a heavy slot instead of standard. They should have made it standard, and transportable via hovercraft. That also would make combined arms units with Constantines more doable. Now the Hannibal competes against the Patton, Circe, and Napoleon and is arguably inferior to all three.
Durandal wrote: They should have made it standard, and transportable via hovercraft. That also would make combined arms units with Constantines more doable.
I fully agree with making it Standard, but making it hovercraft transportable pretty much shelves Lifthawks for good. Also, there's no good way to fit two in a light hovercraft except sideways, and they'd be impossible to drive off, have to be lifted with a crane. I could see allowing one tank and maybe 2 technicals or 1 bus/truck, but that's getting even further into the force org changes than the topic at hand.
Durandal wrote: Now the Hannibal competes against the Patton, Circe, and Napoleon and is arguably inferior to all three.
It ain't even in that competition. The Circe and Patton are both just plain better. Except for the Circe's lack of devastator against Skimmers for some god forsaken stupid reason. Dumbest rule in the whole fething game.
Durandal wrote: They should have made it standard, and transportable via hovercraft. That also would make combined arms units with Constantines more doable.
I fully agree with making it Standard, but making it hovercraft transportable pretty much shelves Lifthawks for good. Also, there's no good way to fit two in a light hovercraft except sideways, and they'd be impossible to drive off, have to be lifted with a crane. I could see allowing one tank and maybe 2 technicals or 1 bus/truck, but that's getting even further into the force org changes than the topic at hand.
Durandal wrote: Now the Hannibal competes against the Patton, Circe, and Napoleon and is arguably inferior to all three.
It ain't even in that competition. The Circe and Patton are both just plain better. Except for the Circe's lack of devastator against Skimmers for some god forsaken stupid reason. Dumbest rule in the whole fething game.
On this weeks Teaser Tuesday we are going to be covering some Dropfleet Commander and Sci-Fi Gothic products coming soon!
Welcome to space where the Scourge can hear you scream! But try not to as you don’t want to be a new host for those neuro-parasistic parasites. Yes we’ve got some new releases coming out this Friday for our Dropfleet Commanders who feel its time to be a cut above the others. Cutters are coming!
Scourge
The Scourge fleet has expanded even further with the latest innovation in fast, mobile ships. The Parasite and Wraith Cutters have been spotted reinforcing battlefleets across the system and the UCM can’t be sure were they came from. Certainly wasn’t there birth world right? We won’t go into to much detail but if you spot a Parasite in space then maybe keep your ships away from it.
UCM
The UCM are no slouches in combat, and in this situation that means strapping some massive engines onto their ships! The UCM Reykjavik Cutter is soaring into pre-order this Friday. Armed with a pair of massive mass drivers, it’s sure to make some enemies. Alternatively the kit can be built as the Nuuk, which trades destructive firepower for being really, really annoying. Isn’t that a Shaltari thing? Not anymore!
PHR
The PHR’s fleets are smaller than the Scourge however the quality of crew and equipment can’t be surpassed. Not wanting to be out gunned in galactic warfare, they have launched the Pegasus cutter! Deadly by itself, this vessel preys upon merchantmen before disappearing as if never there. How very piratical! This kit also builds the Ourania Swiftlink, which is used as spotter for PHR fleets.
Resistance
The Resistance are never ones to be left behind (except maybe on repainting their ships, the scruffy admirals!). The Sagittarii Cutters pack a massive punch: half of the ship is engines, and the other half is guns! The Baleares variant swaps the guns for launch bays, providing a fast pocket carrier. They come in two pieces, with enough keels for you to mount the engines and prows vertically, horizontally, or a mixture of both!
Shaltari
Shaltari admirals are also in for some reinforcements with the Caesium and Gallium Cutters. The Caesium has a modified Disruptor which makes it excellent at hunting light enemy ships. The Gallium is a whole lot weirder though, using its Bio-Atomiser to kill ships from the inside out, killing all the crew, and letting the ship drift without them.
All these new Cutters are arriving speedily for pre-order on Friday, and we’ll be having a more in-depth look at their rules before then!
Cutters are speeding their way into Fridays release so let’s take a look at what they do!
Getting the obvious out of the way first, Cutters are fast! I mean FAST. These not so small ships are among the fastest ships in the game. With a Thrust between 14″ and 20″ there’s very few places to effectively hide from them.
UCM
Spoiler:
First up, UCM get the Reykjavik and the Nuuk. The Reykjavik is a nimble, lightly armoured, heavily armed mass driver platform. With 14″ Thrust, Outlier, and Vectored, this ship can get exactly where its Twin Mass Drivers can deal most damage. Speaking of which, these are the same Mass Drivers as on the Kiev, albeit nowhere near as good at shooting into atmosphere. Still, if you can get a weapons free on a full group of 3, they can put out a lot of damage.
The Nuuk, on the other hand is both lightly armoured and lightly armed. It’s Haywire Blaster wins no awards for damage (not even a wooden spoon) but if it hits, it can shut down a whole round of planning. Forcing a larger ship onto standard orders can be crippling for its damage output, or forcing a station keeping ship off of an objective could win you that game.
Scourge
Spoiler:
The Scourge get the Wraith and the Parasite. At 16″ Thrust and Vectored, the Wraith is quick and nimble. They aren’t particularly armoured, but are the only Cutter with two weapon systems. They’ll need that manoeuvrability to get to close range, where most of their damage will be coming from. Close Action (Beam) Plasma Brands, perfect for getting damage through pesky point defence.
The Parasite is a ship that bucks the trend of Scourge ships wanting to stay hidden. The Parasite loves Spikes, and gains a damage boost if any of the ships in its group use their Energy Siphon to drain them from other ships. This is a bit of a double edged sword though, as the Parasite that siphoned off that spike also gains it. Minor Spikes give less damage than Major Spikes, so you’ll need to decide how much you want the siphoning ship to be seen and how much damage you want to do with the group.
PHR
Spoiler:
The Pegasus and the Ourania are the very swift looking cutters for the PHR. First of the two, the Pegasus is part engines, part nano-hive. Chock full to the brim with Nano Drones, this ship is capable of keeping itself repaired on dangerous missions far from the front lines. This results in a sizeable Regenerate of 6, that even works while Crippled! The Nano Drones are no slouch when it comes to dealing damage either, with plenty of attacks (maybe) and Close Action (Swarmer) gives its targets a difficult time defending.
The Ourania, however is a completely different ship to anything we’ve seen in Dropfleet so far. This ship acts a bit like a Scout unit does for Indirect weapons on ground, but for weapons in space. There are a few limitations on this ability, first the ship firing its weapons must be in line of sight to the target, no shooting around moons. Second is that the Ourania must be in Scan + Signature of both the firing ship and the target. A powerful ability, though thankfully (or unfortunately for PHR players) the unit is Rare and less armoured with less point defence than normal for PHR.
Shaltari
Spoiler:
Shaltari Admirals get access to the Caesium and the Gallium Cutters. Both of these ships have a ridiculously fast Thrust of 20″ with a reasonable shield and high point defence. The Caesium is a dedicated light ship hunter though will need to be positioned well to make use of a F(N) Focused Disruptor. Fortunately the disruptor has a decent amount of attack and Calibre(L), giving it a very good chance of landing a crit on those pesky L tonnage ships.
While the Caesium is a scalpel for excising your opponents fleet of its L tonnage ships, the Gallium is more a serrated knife. Slower than the Caesium, the Gallium makes up for it with by not caring what it attacks, though will probably want to tackle larger ships. The Bio Atomiser Array may not deal damage up front, but it can stack up Corruptor tokens quick. Point defence won’t save you from this close action weapon, with 6 attacks, some of those Corruptor tokens will stick. A Gallium won’t hold up much under sustained fire, though with low sig and high thrust it should be able to put plenty of Corruptor tokens on the things that matter before they have a chance to react.
Resistance
Spoiler:
The Resistance kit isn’t quite the same as the other Cutters. This kit can be put together in a couple of different ways , just in case you wanted all your cutters to look slightly different. The only part that matters to determine which variant is which is the prow, though. The first of these prows is the Sagittarii. Fairly tough for a Cutter, the Sagittarii has a set of N-12 Artillery Cannons. These are the same type of gun you can find on the broadsides of a Grand Battleship (though in greatly reduced number). Thanks to being mostly engine, both of these ships have 16″ worth of thrust, and a reasonable amount of hull and armour to keep them alive.
The Baleares has absolutely no weapons to speak of, unless you count Bombers as weapons. What it does have, is almost the same statline as the Sagittarii. Thanks to keeping some fighters in reserve, the Baleares has a slightly higher point defence than the Sagitarii, but you’re not taking it for that. This little Pocket Carrier is fast, and the ability to get fighters and bombers where you need them shouldn’t be overlooked.
Spoiler:
There you go Admirals, be sure to check the TTCombat Store tomorrow (at around 3pm GMT) when pre-orders go live!
As a bonus, we’re also doing a minor balance pass at the same time as the Cutters release! This will include changes to over performing ships like the Agrippa, as well as underperforming ships, like the Triumvir. We’ve also got a couple of new Experimental Rules that should help Resistance Gunboat Cruiser builds and Dreadnoughts.
Dropfleet Commander Balance Pass February 2022
With the world opening up for tournaments once again, it’s time for a balance pass for Dropfleet Commander!
Later this afternoon (about the same time Cutters go up for pre-order) we’ll be making some changes to ships and and adding in a couple of experimental rules. We’ll go through them in this article and both cards and builder will update later today.
Experimental Rules
The first thing we’re adding is a couple of new Experimental Rules in the FAQ document! You don’t need to use these if you’d rather play with only the rules in the rulebook, but we’d recommend giving them a go to see if they help with any issues you may have with certain ships.
Dreadnought
Add: “Standard Orders and Special Orders that allow a Dreadnought to fire one weapon system allow it to fire up to two weapon systems instead.”
Letting a London fire both of its UF-6400’s or a Resistance Coloniser fire an indeterminate amount of weapons on standard orders gives them a bit more value before they need to go Weapons Free.
Overcharge
Change to: “A weapon with this rule may be Overcharged. An Overcharged weapon (and any weapons with Overcharge it is Linked with) doubles its Damage value for that attack.
If the ship is on Weapons Free Orders it may only fire Close Action or Low Power weapons but not any other weapon types. However if the ship is on any other Orders, it may not use Launch Assets or fire any other weapons, including Close Action and Low Power weapons.”
Now you don’t need to go onto Weapons Free to to get to overcharge a weapon. However the tradeoff is that you can’t fire any other non-linked weapons of any sort, or use launch assets. When you do go weapons free you get to use Close Action and/or Low Power weapons as well. Weapons free Resistance Gunboat Cruisers should have a bit more damage output with a mix of Vent and Low Power weapons.
Ship Changes
UCM
London
Reduce points to 450.
Washington
Reduce points to 440
St. Petersburg
Reduce points to 140
Scourge
Shenlong
Reduce points to 160.
Raiju
Reduce points to 150.
Shadow
Reduce points to 195.
PHR
Agrippa
Increase points to 175.
Change Holo-Debris Field effect to “Once per activation (during any part of the activation, including during movement) you may place a Dense Debris Field within 3” of this ship. These debris fields are removed at the end of the Roundup phase and are circular with a 4” diameter (a D6 or custom template are perfect tokens to represent these). Friendly ships and Launch Assets ignore these Debris Fields”
Hector
Reduce points to 155.
Ajax
Reduce points to 95.
Shaltari
Jade
Particle Lance – Remove Fusilade (1).
Particle Lance – Increase Damage to 2.
Obsidian
Reduce points to 145.
Hematite
Increase points to 230.
Resistance
Frigate Weapon Systems
N-31 Hybrid Gun Turret – Reduce points to 0.
Light Vent Cannon Turret – Remove Scald.
Heavy Frigate
Increase points to 35.
Senator
Reduce points to 160.
Increase Scan to 12”.
Triumvir
Add Rare special rule
Change Box Of Scraps to read – “At the end of this ship’s activation, pick one friendly ship within 6” in line of sight (including this one). Place a Box Of Scraps token next to that ship. The next time that ship would be destroyed, it isn’t. Instead remove the Box of Scraps token and that ship remains in play with D3 Hull Points remaining. Box Of Scraps tokens persist through rounds but a ship may only have 1 Box Of Scraps token”
As always we’ll be keeping an eye on feedback and will make additional adjustments to ships in the next balance pass. Though with fewer games played this past year due to *cough* certain dangers, we thought we’d keep this pass light and only make changes to the things that have been brought up the most.
All of these ship changes will be reflected on the builder, available on the Dropfleet Commander website.
You can find the FAQ document with the Experimental Rules here.
Shaltari have good silhouettes and that Remnant ship is aping the classic CR90 which still looks great. I wasn't a fan of the Havana due to the asymmetry versus the rest of the fleet, and I haven't changed my mind yet. PHR looks exactly like the corvette to me, except for the one with the thing sticking out of the bottom; the corvettes are pretty.
Hate the scourge models. They look like something I made out of sprue leftovers.
The Rules I have no idea how you reconcile Parasite and induced spikes from Active Scanning enemy ships. It breaks a fundamental conceit of the game.
If a UCM Lima Detector frigates uses Active Scan to place a minor spike on a Scourge ship, the Lima isn't imparting any energy to the scourge vessel, the Lima is simply listening loudly. The parasite can consume that spike as a power source. It's beyond meta gamey, it makes the mechanics of the game make less sense. It's like they forgot what Detector represents while writing Parasite because they were just so excited about the idea. Should never have made it past the brainstorming phase, let alone all the way to a release.
I'm not a fan of haywire for the same reason I'm not a fan of the Harpocrates, too swingy, and I don't mean that as I think they are ineffective, I don't like that kind of arbitrary swinginess in my games.
Generally I worry what these ultra fast hard hitting ships will do for the overall game balance. I don't want to see the game move towards alpha strikes over manuever, nor the dakka phase of the game happen so early the later turns lack impact.
The Typos
They fixed one of the list I sent in 4 months ago, made another worse, and ignored the rest. We're talking tens of minutes of work to fix what's left.
Theseus, Platinum, and Reykjavik all have misspelled 'Fusilade' with 1 L instead of 2
Heracles' Dark Matter Cannon has special rules Crippling, Boom (instead of Bloom)
Lysander doesn't have its 'Stealth Observation' rule in the builder at all.
Shaltari Bombers are 15" Thrust and Fighters are +4 PD in the current digital rulebook, but the builder has them respectively at 12" Thrust and +5PD. I honestly can't tell which are supposed to be correct.
Istanbul is supposed to be Thrust 4" instead of 6"
Amber has a Hull of 9" instead of 9. It has an extraneous double quote.
Then again, this was like the 4th release in a row where they blew up the builder and their community site for half a day trying to add new units.
Shaltari station looks a bit too much like a plant stand. Maybe it'll look better painted up. The PHR one needs that classic inner ring Bentusi glow effect.
I hope they've been designed to be compatible with the generic station sprue, because if they're just mono-pose resin kits I'm going to be deeply unimpressed.
I've long felt that Shaltari need a metric tonne of artwork depicting them in battle. Of all the races they've the least "gun like" guns and the most strange designs. They sorely need lots of art and stories and lore to describe and visually show how their stuff works.
PHR rocks up with a battery of broadside guns; Humans have turreted main guns; Scourge have laser-eyes
Overread wrote: They sorely need lots of art and stories and lore to describe and visually show how their stuff works.
Between the published descriptions in the big book and pdfs, and a lifetime of reading mil-SF, I've got a pretty good idea of what they all look and behave like except for the ion cannon/lance and pulse-ioniser battery. Those just don't have enough published words to more than guess at.
The rest, micro/hyperwaves, harpoons, beamers, thermal lances, ion generators, disruptors/disintegrators, the distortion cannon, gravity coils, particle lances; Dave and I are simpatico. We probably read the same books, spent the same long hours reading Project Rho.
If any of y'all know anyone at Adepticon, TTC has a firesale on old Hawk stock Dropzone models, $5 a pack. It's unlikely there will ever be a better sale than now. I've been trying to find a friend-of-a-local-friend that's attending.
The deal is nice. But honestly I wonder how they sell off stock just because of old packaging while a huge load of their kits is very often out of stock. It looks like their capacities for productions do not match demand and product range.
Something Big Is Getting Ready to Drop – WIP Wednesday
It’s WIP Wednesday, that time of the week where I tour the office to see what I can sneak away and show you! So, I think it is about time I showed you something new from Dropzone Commander.
Found on Fin’s painting desk we’ve got guns… big guns. So big they make Doom’s BFG look like the Cricket from MIB.
Only one thing can make use of these: Behemoths! Hopefully the paint bottles give you a sense of scale because did I mention they’re big?! Now imagine the rest of the model.
I’m not really sure what these guns do at the moment, but they’re certainly impressive.
They are going to make a huge impact to Dropzone both visually and in gameplay. How they work though is something you are going to have to wait a little longer to find out. How about the full models I hear you ask? Well they’re nothing short of impressive. You’ll see those soon!
For now though, the wait is almost over and more will be shown in due course. Be sure to keep an eye on TTCommunity for those updates.
It’s been YEARS in the making to get to this stage but BEHEMOTHS are coming. Welcome to this week’s Teaser Tuesday where we’ll be covering some Dropzone and Fantasy Realms releases.
Honestly, it’s been a while hasn’t it? But after many many many delays we can finally see the light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel. It’s an exciting time for PHR and Scourge players as this Friday you’ll be able to pre-order these monstrosities.
The Behemoths are the largest models ever made for Dropzone Commander. In fact, they’re the largest models we’ve ever made! They’re almost certainly going to be the largest models Dropzone will ever see. And they’re rather scary as well!
These huge new additions to Dropzone Commander have been circling the battlefield for some time, but the first two are finally coming to the TTCombat webstore! We’re starting with the PHR and Scourge Behemoths. In the coming months we’ll be releasing the rest, so you won’t have to wait long. The UCM will receive their Behemoth next, with the Shaltari and Resistance arriving shortly afterwards. It’s going to be a BIG summer for Dropzone!
PHR
The PHR Behemoths are of course tough, advanced, and packing lots of firepower. Whilst not bolstering a huge crew, the advanced onboard AI system practically does the work for you. Type -7s have five identical legs and a fully rotatable torso. Furthermore, thanks to their RX-30 Miniguns, the massive R7X-5 Rotary Cannon, or the R7X-66 Incinerator, players will have plenty of offensive options.
The PHR Behemoth (like all the Behemoths) comes with parts to make one of two classes. The parts are also very easy to pin or magnetize, so you can swap weapons out between games if you so wish. The PHR Behemoth can be made as either the Chronus or the Tethys. We’ve shown some of the options already, but we’ll be talking more about them later this week.
SCOURGE
Optimised for frontline combat and providing both physical and psychological impact, the Scourge Behemoth has been spotted. Similar to all Scourge constructs, these Behemoths are outlandish in appearance and feature numerous tendrils, tentacles, and legs. Although they are bigger than skyscrapers, these heavy-classed monstrosities are capable of targeting individual infantrymen to snatch for the Scourge cause.
As with the PHR, the Scourge Behemoth can be built in two ways: either as the anti-Behemoth Tyrant, or the Dictator which is best suited to engaging numerous smaller targets with arcing electric-based weaponry.
More information will be available later this week!
I'm betting slightly more than the Remnant dread, so £70. They just seem like even more material, in even more detail, than the flying brick's box.
But truly, I just want to see the unit cards (in particular how they differ from the 2019 beta stats) and then move on more interesting prospects for the game, like some rules updates and factional command cards.
The CHRONUS Walks Forth
The PHR Behemoth is almost here!
Finally, after years of teasing and waiting, the Behemoths are arriving to Dropzone Commander!
These units are the biggest ones ever in Dropzone, and are the biggest models we’ve ever made! Of course, with Dave designing them, you know that they’re no less detailed than the smallest Type-1 walker.
In fact, why not take a look at the entire thing in 360 degrees?
The PHR Behemoth is truly a thing of wonder. Clad in pristine PHR armour panels, it has loads of techy gubbinz underneath to keep you busy painting.
The legs come in four pieces each, which gives a crazy amount of customisation. Fancy modelling yours stepping on a downed Phoenix Gunship? You can totally do that. It definitely won’t be getting up again after being stepped on!
THE RULES
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE RULES?!
That’s right, there’s rules! Not only are these massive kits some of the most beautiful scale models around, they’re fully useable in Dropzone Commander!
The PHR Behemoth comes fully equipped with five legs, some huge missiles, and possibly the most guns of any of the Behemoths! Fitting for PHR’s high technology. It’s also clad in the signature thick PHR armour plates, so you know it’s going to be tough!
The PHR Behemoth (like all of the forthcoming Behemoths) comes in two types: the Chronus and the Tethys. Both of them share the same base stats and Damage Thresholds, it’s just the weapons and special rules that vary.
As you can see here, the Chronus is a mighty beast! Armour 15 makes it extremely difficult to damage, with only the highest Energy weapons even being able to pierce its hull. If you’re fighting against a PHR Behemoth, be sure to load up on Penetrative or Destroyer weapons!
We really need to talk about the Damage Thresholds though. This is where the different Behemoths really start to act differently. If you remember, you target individual Zones on a Behemoth, and need to destroy 2 of the 3 Zones completely in order to blow it up. Of course, blowing up a Behemoth isn’t actually always the best use of firepower. If you can stop it from actively participating in the game in any meaningful way, that’s often enough.
I’ll tell you now: the Chronus and Tethys have the highest total Damage Points of all the Behemoths – as is fitting for the PHR! With 15 Damage Points on the Hull, you’re going to have to deal out a huge chunk of damage to have any effect. However, the result of Crippling the Hull is that the Behemoth is reduced to Armour 12, which means that even AA weapons and some sidearms can damage it. If you manage to Cripple the Hull early on, it really opens up options for fighting it, and makes it harder for the PHR player to nullify your firepower. So PHR players: watch out!
The legs are probably the least attractive target for most of the Behemoths, but there’s always a draw. Not only are the legs the easiest things to Cripple, but every time you do, it reduces its Move value and has an extra Damage spill over to a different Zone. Cripple all of the legs and the PHR Behemoth cannot move, which means it cannot stomp! With D3 Energy 10 hits per squad stomped on, don’t discount how powerful that attack is. And with a massive Move of 10″ (it’s a skyscraper sized robot with 5 legs), it’s going to be able to saunter through an enemy’s battle line.
Finally the weapons. While there are only 3 Damage Thresholds here, each one will stop multiple weapons from firing. It’s basically like aiming at each arm, or the giant rockets. But for this one to be a worry, we really need to look at the weapons.
THE WEAPONS
Here we go, time for the good stuff! If 2D3 Energy 10 Drop-Harness hits and D3 Energy 10 stomp attacks wasn’t enough (seriously, this thing will squash enemies flat), the PHR Behemoths come with loads of weapons. We’re not going to show you everything today, but how about some big guns?
The Chronus comes with a pair of R7X-1 Railguns. These are the biggest Railguns ever seen (on a Dropzone model anyway – there are certainly bigger ones in Dropfleet)! They even dwarf a Tiamat’s guns, which is saying something.
While not longer ranged than the Tiamat, the R7X-1s are more accurate, have a ridiculous Energy 14 (seriously, that’s 3s to Crit an Alexander), and are Devastator-3 against Behemoths! The Chronus variant is an extremely good Behemoth hunter. While the Railguns might be a little overkill on smaller targets, with Dev-2 on any other Vehicle, you can easily take out a Warstrider in a single shot (with no Passive saves thanks to E14).
The Chronus is also fitted with a pair of massive R7X-5 Rotary Cannons. These jumbo sized machine-guns are even more powerful than the Heavy Miniguns on the Hades. With double the number of shots and Focus-2, you can rack up some serious firepower. They also ignore Soft and Body cover, which makes them great for ripping through entire squads of infantry who think they’re safe in a Garrison.
Unfortunately for the Chronus, the Rotary Cannons cannot go above Energy 12 from Focus, but even that is enough to turn a mainline battle tank into a heap of slag.
Oh and of course the Chronus is also armed with Stealth-X Missile Clusters, Dual Miniguns, and the crazy Nova Missiles, but it’s time to move onto its brother the Tethys.
While the Chronus is very much an anti-big vehicle Behemoth, the Tethys takes a more mixed role. The Chronus is a point and click destroyer, but the Tethys rewards careful play more. You’ll have to be canny to get the best use out of it, but skilled (or lucky) players will be able to make a real mess of their opposing armies!
The Tethys trades the Railguns for a pair of R7X-2 Sunglaives. These are new weapons to Dropzone, previously only seen (in a scaled up version) on the PHR Dreadnought.
The Sunglaives have an infinite range, which makes the Tethys a good candidate for walking on the board rather than Drop-Harnessing in. That means it gets an extra round of shooting! With 2 shots each at Energy 11, the Sunglaives put out more hits overall than the Railguns, but are much less likely to damage their foes. Luckily though, the Tethys has a trick up its sleeve:
If you Overcharge the Sunglaives, they gain both Devastator-2 (All) and Destroyer (4+) for the round. It takes both actions, which means you’ll have to set up your firing lines in advance. But if you have the action free, it’s not a bad idea at all to overcharge. Destroyer (4+) is insanely good, as on a 4+ to hit, you automatically Crit your target without needing to roll to damage. With Dev-2 (All), that means you can take on Behemoths as well. Or if you have some particularly heavy armour to take out reliably, it might be worth it. It means you don’t get your stomp attacks for the round, but with infinite range, you can keep out of harm’s way too.
Unfortunately, the Tethys does have another use for an extra action.
The White Nanomachine Colony replenishes Damage Points from a single Zone, potentially taking it above a Damage Threshold. That means that if a Sunglaive is destroyed, you can send you White Nanomachines in to bring it back online again, doubling your damage output and thoroughly frustrating your opponent. If you’re doing this every round though, you’re not getting your full damage out, and the Tethys will end up a little more immobile as a result. Still, it’s a very useful skill just in case you need it.
As with all of our Dropzone Commander models, the full rules will be available on Friday, both as a free download on the Resources page, and in the Dropzone Army Builder.
And as with all Dropzone Commander models, these rules join into the living, evolving ruleset. They might not last like this forever, and almost certainly will need some tweaks later on down the line. We take all feedback on our unit balance seriously, although particularly with Behemoths, we will be waiting to take feedback on games played, since these massive units need some serious table time to get an idea of what they bring to your games.
Oh and to make playing with them easier, we’ve also made some alternate sheets to keep track of damage:
These full page sheets are super easy for damage tracking. You can use counters or dice, or – our favourite – laminate the sheets and then use a dry-wipe pen to mark off damage as you go. There’s nothing more satisfying than erasing some of that damage with White Nanomachines!
That’s all for today! Are you excited or scared by the PHR Behemoths? How are you going to model yours? The legs, arms, and even hull are all completely poseable, offering loads of options for making this epic kit to your exact specifications.
We’ll be back on Friday with all the release information, but until then, you can check out the rest of the PHR range on the TTCombat webstore!
Well this doesn't really look all that different from the beta test, which is a really bad sign.
The Michigan playtesting group talked about them in a podcast. They said they were horribly unbalanced and unfun in all their testing, they overshadowed any scenario they showed up in, they wiped the board unless you brought an opposing Behemoth. Also, I guess TTC was lying back when the stats leaked and they said they'd be substantially different on release.
There's still a chance the balance comes from all the other units in the game, and we'll see that come the weekend (or next week, if they feth up the builder like usual).
Scourge Behemoth Sighted!
What’s that coming over the hill? It is a monster!
Not just any monster, it’s the Scourge Behemoth!
This incredible new kit is on its way to the pre-order section of the TTCombat webstore later today (3pm!). The single biggest Scourge model ever (including the Scourge Dreadnought), it’s covered in guns and tentacles! You want a nice spin around look?
That’s one gorgeous evil tentacle monster!
In fact, there are eleven tentacles included with the kit. Eight big ones, and three little ones. And if you thought that the PHR Behemoth was poseable, that’s nothing! The Scourge Behemoth’s tentacles actually come completely straight:
Each of them connects to the main hull with a square locator, and to a “foot” with another square locator. All you need to do is take a hairdryer to them, heat them up a little, and bend them into whatever shape you want.
When Fin was assembling and painting the studio Behemoth, he found it easiest to bend the legs into the approximate shape he wanted first, then to pin them into the body and attach the feet, before making final adjustments with the whole thing assembled. This way you can get the pose you want, but a little last-minute hairdrying means the Behemoth will sit flat on the table as well. The resin is very flexible when heated up, so you can make whatever weird pose you want!
The Weapons
But enough about the modelling side, what does the Scourge Behemoth bring to the table? Well, why don’t we start with those tentacles?
They’re not just a way of getting around the board at speed, they’re actually composed of thousands of tiny filaments, all wrapped around each other to provide strength. However, the Scourge host(s) can splay them out, sending each sailing into and around cover. What looks like a single large vehicle stomper can split out so much that a single thread can pierce the heart of an infantry soldier hiding inside a Garrison!
The Seeker Lashes are the weapon profile for these monstrous tentacles. You get 6 Shots at Energy 4 with Focus (2). That means each shot damages most Infantry on a 3+ which is already scary. But if you want to, you can stack your hits together to go after vehicles too. On average that turns into a single Energy 10 hit, but if you’re lucky it could go all that way to a huge Energy 14, which is enough to even punch a hole in a Behemoth!
Add in that it has the Flame special rule, and you’ll be able to reach into the centre of Garrisons to pull Infantry apart. Behemoths cost a lot of points, which means you’ll often be fighting an uphill battle when it comes to claiming Objectives. The Seeker Lashes really make up for that!
Oh and did I mention that you get three of these weapons on each Behemoth? :O
The Seeker Lashes are actually a secondary weapon though. The Scourge Behemoths primary weapons vary depending on which variant you take. While we saw that the PHR’s Chronus and Tethys have quite defined roles, the Dictator and Tyrant are more generalist. The Tyrant is equipped with a Bio-Cannon and Heavy Plasma Cannons, while the Dictator has an Arc Maw and Static Accelerators.
The Dictator has some of the most esoteric weaponry that the Scourge have to offer. Two pairs of Static Accelerators (those are the long spiny things) give the Dictator some awesome range (a rarity for Scourge), and while they’re not the highest Energy that Behemoths have to offer, they do have Destroyer (5+), which means they can fairly easily hurt any target.
The Arc Maw is a little different though. A super-sized Arc weapon, the Maw fires such a massively concentrated arc beam that it grounds itself in multiple targets, leaping from one to the next.
Although it only has a 12″ range, it can bounce from target to target to get much further away. At Energy 14, you have a great chance of damaging a fair few foes in a row, even ripping into multiple Zones of enemy Behemoths. After a few hits it’s advisable to go after Aircraft, as not only do they typically have lower Armour, but they’re also automatically hit, ignoring any pesky Evasion Countermeasures!
The Tyrant’s weapons do a little bit of everything!
Two pairs of Heavy Plasma Cannons are the most dangerous versions of this weapon we’ve seen to date. With higher range and Energy than their smaller brothers and sisters, these also upgrade to Devastator-2 (All), meaning vehicles and even Behemoths will feel the sting.
The Bio-Cannon is a cousin of the Eradicator’s Bio-Mortar, although much higher powered, and favouring a direct approach. An Area weapon that ignores all Cover is already rather deadly, and it’s a massive Energy 11 as well! That’s deadly to light vehicles, and a risk to even the heaviest enemies. Not only that, but the Bio-Cannon fires a payload of living cells that gradually eat away at enemies:
So anyone unfortunate enough to be touching the template at the end of the round is hit again! This sounds like a great advantage, but in practice it’s a little harder to use. If you activate your Behemoth early on to cause the most carnage, then your opponent can easily just step out of the Area template. But activating it after most enemy units will almost guarantee a second hit, although you have to hope that your opponent doesn’t destroy the Bio-Cannon first!
The Stats
Speaking of destroying weapons, we should have a look at the Scourge Behemtohs’ main stats, and see just how to take one of these big boys down.
The Scourge Behemoth has the highest Move of all the Behemoths, allowing it to slither its way across the battlefield quickly. Although we’ve seen the weapons already, and moving too fast will stop a fair few of them from firing, so Scourge players should be careful where they deploy. A Drop-Harness will get it stuck in quickly, but walking on the board is still an option, as you can close the gap fairly quickly.
Armour 13 and Resilient should be a familiar sight for Scourge players at this point, as it matches all of their other walkers. In practice this makes the Scourge Behemoth a very strange prospect to face. Armour 13 is not the highest around – it can even be damaged by the Patton’s Autocannon! However, Resilient means that the heaviest weapons are a lot less useful against it. The Crocodile for example is an incredible high Armour destroyer, but is a bit wasted on the Scourge Behemoth, since 1 Energy 14 shot is still just 1 shot.
For anyone fighting a Scourge Behemoth, it means your options for destroying it are a lot more varied than if you were fighting say a PHR Behemoth. However, for Scourge players, it also opens up the “valuable target” list dramatically. Thanks to its abundance of weapons and stomping on things, the Scourge Behemoth can happily go after lighter armour and still be stopping its opponents from hurting it.
If that Resilient is turning into a bit of a problem, then targeting the Hull first is a good idea. It doesn’t lower its Armour like the PHR Behemoth, but removes that special rule, allowing your high Energy weapons to score criticals normal. Having frequently been on the Scourge’s side during playtesting, I can tell you that it takes a long time to cripple the Hull, but once it’s gone, it can go sideways for Scourge players very quickly!
Both the Legs and Weapons are great targets as well. With 5 Damage Points each, you can pass those Damage Thresholds relatively easily, and unlike the PHR Behemoth, taking out the legs also takes out some weapons! If the Seeker Lashes are proving to be too much to take, then destroying the legs is a good idea. Unfortunately for its does, the Scourge Behemoth has enough tentacles to keep moving even when you’ve blasted the legs to pieces. Indeed, destroying them all only halves its Move distance.
As for weapons, I’m not sure which are the best to destroy! The Scourge Behemoth is quite unique because every one of its three weapons is deadly in its own right. Between the three, there aren’t really any “best” choices to destroy. The Arc Maw and Bio-Cannon are great at dealing with groups of enemies, while the Heavy Plasma Cannons and Static Accelerators excel at taking out heavy armour. It all depends on how the game plays out!
Stat Sheets
As with the PHR Behemoth (and all other Dropzone units), the stats for the Tyrant and Dictator will be available both on the Dropzone Army Builder and as stat sheets in the Resources section. And as with the PHR one, there are also some optional extra sheets for keeping track of damage.
In fact, we’ve made two styles for each Behemoth, so you can choose which one you like using best! This version has a gorgeous picture of the miniature, which should help to give some ideas for posing. The arms come in three pieces as well, so it’s not just the tentacles you can pose!
Both Behemoths will be available to pre-order later today! It’s an exciting day for Dropzone, that’s for sure!
Have you got ideas how you’re going to model your tentacled monster? Are you looking forward to waging some kind of war of the worlds? Let us know, and make sure to check back at 3pm to pre-order your own Behemoth on the TTCombat webstore!
I hate Focus. It's pointless extraneous dice rolling and doesn't make sense within the context of all the weapons in the game that fire more than one round but have a high Energy value. You know what outcome you want when you pick a target, figuring out the optimal energy to shots ratio is some boring probability work.
But this is from the guy who unironically redesigned the Napoleon to roll more dice because that would make it more fun.
A 13 seems like a mistake. The armor drop, despite Resilient, on my big crabs has seen them dying much earlier in games. This thing is going to get worked like a speed bag. Hell, I've had a group of 6 Ronin kill an undamaged Oppressor in one volley on turn 2 TWICE in the last 4 months.
And as little as I respect TTC's design team, I never actually expected them to not give something like the Crocodile Dev-X(Behemoths) but after reading that article... whoo boy. Fingers crossed it's just Lewis forgetting how to play his own game or something.
While I am not a big fan of Dropzone aesthetic I still love the feel and design of the Scourge big one. Price and the difficulties that come with such a resin kit make this an niche product that will adress the hardcore DZC enthusiasts.
I am curious what TTCombat has prepared for us for the near future. The new Carnevale Gangs are awesome and got me to finally jump in to the game, hope that DFC will catch on in my local community as well
You'd think, but no, not really. Most of the hardcore DZC fans hate the very concept of them in game. They're fine with them as display pieces, but majority opinion I've seen is that they just don't fit into the game at all.
They really don’t fit the basic tone of the fluff, either. The bits in the Battle for Earth book about them being more effective as recruitment tools than weapons of war was funny. They clearly hope the game pieces will help recruitment, but at 95 pounds their sticker shock might have the opposite effect.
But today, esp with a lot of older geeks, I'd say that barrier isn't as much as it once was. Don't forget GW is doing just great with Greater Demons, Titans and more all coming close to that £100 mark.
It's one reason Forgeworld models are much more tolerated and accepted than they were 20 odd years ago. The price disparity between GW and FW has reduced significantly.
That said models in that price range are always going to be a labour of love first for most people and a tactical choice second.
For a month now, the PHR and Scourge have been dominating the battlefield thanks to their Behemoths. Well the UCM did not approve of this one bit! Therefore this Friday the United Colonies of Mankind are joining the big boys club.
This Teaser Tuesday we have a Dropzone Commander special dedicated to the latest additions you’ll be able to add to your tabletop. The UCM America is certainly the largest miniature we’ve made for this faction and like the previous Behemoths, it’s among the biggest Dropzone miniatures ever.
UCM Behemoth
The UCM Behemoths are the crowning jewel of Mankind’s armies. These Heavy Battle Mechs currently have two classes in active deployment with the America pictured above. This classification sports a pair of mighty UMH-1 Mass Drivers which is the pinnacle of Railgun technology. These weapons are as tall as an apartment block if stood upright and powerful enough to tear through the toughest opposition armored machines.
Like all Behemoths, the UCM’s second Behemoth class offers an alternative to the America’s weaponry and combat style, but we’ll cover that another time. Wouldn’t be fun to reveal everything today and besides we have one more thing to tease.
Just a guess but I think that when it's moving those back legs probably fold up out of the way and it walks like an ED-209, and the back things are just stabilisers for when it's fining its main weapons.
For what it is I quite like it, but I still think the Behemoths don't really fit in the relatively 'hard' sci-fi setting. It's hard to believe that the same faction that puts it's tank guns on extendable arms with a low profile chassis so they can fire from concealed positions builds something as ridiculous as this.
Yeah but once you've got weapons the size of its main guns you likely can't hide them all that well. Even the energy signature of such weapons is likely hard to mask. So if you can't hide it go insane with armour and shields and such.
As for the legs the pose its in there is clearly its "stop, brace, fire" stance. The rear parts of the legs would fold up a bit and the whole unit likely rises up when walking. It likely only uses those rear parts for shooting stability when stationary rather than as part of its moving
I wish there were pics of it from the rear. And the UCM walker needing stabilizer stubby heel things just makes you think "why the feth isn't it a tank".
If it gets M&F 0" on the weapons, stabilizers would make sense. If not, then it doesn't. I guess we know Friday?
It should either be a Bolo-sized tank or massive dropship-sized attack aircraft. The complexity and surface area of a torso-arms-and-legs configuration doesn’t make sense in a universe so heavily invested in the idea that everything on the battlefield was built to be transported cost-effectively.
The Scourge and the Shaltari can get away with these huge walkers a little more easily due to their tech level and biology/psychology. PHR is full post-human nanowank, so it’s not a bit of a stretch. But for baseline human armies, this feels like a huge waste of resources.
Automatically Appended Next Post: That said, it’s one sexy mecha, and I l’e buy one for 35 pounds just to have it.
The background talks about these being big morale boost type units, but suggests they are few and far between and never really that effective on the battlefield.
A bit like battleships in WW2, they were a status symbol but didn’t win the war for anybody.
It’s the the UCM’s turn to unleash their Behemoth!
Continuing the releases of the biggest kits in Dropzone Commander, the UCM America and Japan make their way onto the store tomorrow! These kits keep the same incredible level of detail that Dave puts into all his kits.
Don’t just take my word for it, check out our 360 degree turnaround.
The UCM don’t normally take the legged option when it comes to vehicle design, but the Behemoth’s take a bit of a unique place in UCM combat doctrine. Equally as much a recruitment and propaganda piece as they are a combat vehicle, they’re the ultimate poster child for the reconquest.
About the legs. Dave’s made these in a way that gives you a lot of freedom in posing, with ball joints in the hips and many, many axles in the leg joints. Each leg comes to about 18 parts. Advanced kits indeed!
The Rules
“But what do its guns do?” I hear you cry.
We’ll get to that.
First up we have to talk about the hull itself. The UCM Behemoth chassis may not sport as many weapons as some of its counterparts, but it makes up for it with grim determination and a “get off my planet” attitude. Also armour. A lot of armour.
Both variants of the UCM Behemoth use this statline, with a respectable initial move, the standard UCM active countermeasures, and more armour than any other unit in the game. Only the mightiest of weapons can crack the armour on this massive war machine. Though once you’ve managed to take down a threshold on its Hull, it suddenly becomes more manageable.
With 8 separate damage thresholds, the UCM Behemoth sits in between the Scourge and PHR Behemoths. With both Hull and Weapons needing 9 damage to take out each threshold, it might be easier to cripple its legs, then focus on another zone.
Though some weapons can chew through even Behemoths or Armour 16. For those, taking out the Hull first could be the most sure fire way of taking this thing down. It takes 9 damage to Hull to reduce its Armour to 14, the same as a PHR walker. It then takes a further 9 damage (which should be easier now thanks to the aforementioned A14) to reduce its Armour to 12. Once you’ve broken through all that armour, you’ve also taken out the carapace weapons as well. A nice two for one that makes taking out the Hull a kind of attractive prospect.
The UCM Behemoth’s legs are is weakest Zone. 3 damage points each makes for a decent amount of spillover damage. If you take out all of the legs, that’s one threshold on Hull or Weapons almost half gone already. Not only does this Behemoth become immobile when the legs are taken down, it also loses its Leg Stabilisers rule.
Given good firing lines, the UCM Behemoth can be incredibly accurate, though at the cost of needing to remain stationary that round.
The weapon zone is fairly straight forward. 2 thresholds, each taking one of its main armaments offline. It may not seem like much, but when you have railguns as long as a building is high and firing rounds the size of a skip at you, you might consider taking one out.
The Weapons
UCM propaganda might have you believe that the America is accurate enough to shoot the juice box out of a scourge warriors hand at 60km. Or that the Japan’s rate of fire is enough to gut a bulk lander and its contents in under 4 seconds. We’re not interested in the UCM’s propaganda today, but we are interested in what these weapons can do on the tabletop.
The America is equipped with a pair of UMH-1 Mass Drivers. These things are as tall as a building and can put out a hell of a lot of hurt. Each one covers the front and a side at a range of infinite. They may only be a single shot, but with an Accuracy of 1+ and re-rolls of 1’s if the Behemoth plants its feet, you won’t be missing often. Energy 13 makes it through most armour, with Devastator-5 (All) putting the hurt on whatever is at the end of the barrel. These guns are great against large targets, but not so great at clearing out waves of smaller tanks.
That job is better worked by the America’s Missile Batteries. These are the two carapace mounted missile launchers capable of spreading E10 devastation over an area. Still capable of dealing with a single tank, or putting a few points of damage onto a building, they’re very much a secondary weapon to the Mass Drivers.
Shared between both the America and Japan, the Gatling Cannon Batteries are the 3 rotary cannons either side of the main hull. Firmly tertiary weapons, you won’t be killing many tanks with these. Though they make for decent damage against infantry foolish enough to come close to a wall in view of a Behemoth.
The Japan’s main weapons are its UMH-9 Stormcrow Cannons. Much shorter range than the Mass Drivers, these are designed to take down structures and fortifications. They should have no problem doing so with 6 shots and Devastator-2 (Scenery). While these are much less accurate than the Mass Drivers, the Stormcrow Cannons can Focus for a bit of extra Energy.
The Heavy Munitions Hailfire are the secondary weapons and main anti-Behemoth weapons. Though not as damaging as the America’s Mass Drivers, they still pack a respectable punch. The downside is that they are Limited (2) and M&F 1″.
Stat Sheets
Just like the PHR and Scourge Behemoths the UCM Behemoth will have their own stat sheets and damage tracking sheets. These make tracking damage super easy, with plenty of space for counters or tokens. Our favourite way of keeping track is to laminate these and use dry-erase markers to scribble out boxes when the Behemoth takes damage!
That’s all the rules for today, full stats go up on the web builder and download sections on Friday!
Dave’s pulled out all the stops with these units, and we can’t wait to see what you think of them. Which of these are you going to be using in your games of Dropzone Commander? Which one do you look forward to blowing up the most? Can you believe we’ve gone this whole post without a Metal Gear reference?
We’ll be back with release information on Friday, in the mean time you can find the rest of the range over on the TTCombat webstore!
Automatically Appended Next Post: The Japan's guns make it look even more like the Lucius-pattern Warlord Titan.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Wait. In the Battle for Earth book, wasn’t the Japan class a “Russia” class?
Yep. 100%. It is almost like if a country makes itself an international pariah that has all kinds of knock-on consequences. Including losing your name references in niche tabletop wargames!
Yep. Interestingly, it was still being referred to as the Russia class as recently as last week - they referenced it in one of the preview articles, it raised an eyebrow when I saw it as it seems a bad time to be giving a pariah state positive PR with a cool new robot. I'm guessing others probably felt the same and someone mentioned that it might not be the best idea to move ahead with it as the Russia class...
Personally, I would have gone with the Ukraine class instead, but that might be potentially more inflammatory if TTC has a Russian customer base that they are hoping to retain in the future.
chaos0xomega wrote: Yep. Interestingly, it was still being referred to as the Russia class as recently as last week - they referenced it in one of the preview articles, it raised an eyebrow when I saw it as it seems a bad time to be giving a pariah state positive PR with a cool new robot. I'm guessing others probably felt the same and someone mentioned that it might not be the best idea to move ahead with it as the Russia class...
Personally, I would have gone with the Ukraine class instead, but that might be potentially more inflammatory if TTC has a Russian customer base that they are hoping to retain in the future.
Doubly so when the 'Russia' class was specialized in demolition. Just waaaaay too on the nose.
It's also not too hard to rename before release, as opposed to the Moscow class of heavy cruiser in Dropfleet
And I do know they have a Russia player base, as I've run across more than a few Russian language/hosted forum posts, yt videos, and blogs mentioning the Drop games. But also, I don't think they'll have a legal way to sell to those Russians anytime soon, so it's not a concern worth worrying about.
chaos0xomega wrote: Yep. Interestingly, it was still being referred to as the Russia class as recently as last week - they referenced it in one of the preview articles, it raised an eyebrow when I saw it as it seems a bad time to be giving a pariah state positive PR with a cool new robot. I'm guessing others probably felt the same and someone mentioned that it might not be the best idea to move ahead with it as the Russia class...
Personally, I would have gone with the Ukraine class instead, but that might be potentially more inflammatory if TTC has a Russian customer base that they are hoping to retain in the future.
Oh man, now I really wish they had gone with Ukraine class instead!
Not that there is anything wrong with Japan.
And some of the Russian language players could be from Ukraine anyway, for what it is worth.
chaos0xomega wrote: Yep. Interestingly, it was still being referred to as the Russia class as recently as last week - they referenced it in one of the preview articles, it raised an eyebrow when I saw it as it seems a bad time to be giving a pariah state positive PR with a cool new robot. I'm guessing others probably felt the same and someone mentioned that it might not be the best idea to move ahead with it as the Russia class...
Personally, I would have gone with the Ukraine class instead, but that might be potentially more inflammatory if TTC has a Russian customer base that they are hoping to retain in the future.
Not that there is anything wrong with Japan.
I'm sure the Chinese and Koreans would have something to say about that. They still remember WWII. Yasukuni shrine is still a controversial topic.
I don't really mind, mind you. Russia or Japan is fine by me. It is, after all, just the naming convention for a fictional vehicle in a setting where a faction names their equipment after parts of their lost homeworld, set far, far into the future where any current conflict would just be page in a history book. It's just changing the name for moral reasons to another name that also has some current geopolitical baggage behind it seems like an odd move.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: ... the naming convention for a fictional vehicle in a setting where a faction names their equipment after parts of their lost homeworld, set far, far into the future where any current conflict would just be page in a history book.
I decided since the UCM name their ship classes after cities, I'd name my specific ships after notable governors of those cities.
The Tokyo class battleship Yuriko Koike The Johannesburg class battlecruiser Jolidee Matongo
And I had to fight the urge to name a Berlin class light cruiser the Julius Lippert, because while hundreds of years in the future Nazis are no more scandalous than Teutonic Knights or Burgundians, I'm living in the now and I don't want to appear a crypto-fascist. (I went with the Eberhard Diepgen, so the crew could crack wise about 'the Ever-Hard' and because he seems relatively innocuous)
There's some really disappointing blank flat surfaces on the back of the model.
I had to double check, there's nothing like that on either the PHR or Scourge ones. Hate to say it, but this looks like either Dave rush jobbed it, or their casters just weren't up to snuff.
slyphic wrote: There's some really disappointing blank flat surfaces on the back of the model.
I had to double check, there's nothing like that on either the PHR or Scourge ones. Hate to say it, but this looks like either Dave rush jobbed it, or their casters just weren't up to snuff.
IT's a True 'Merican Made machine. Needs spots for Bumper stickers
Status – Unknown
Origin – Unknown
Intent – Unknown
This ship is an Anomaly…
Scourge Warrior
Perhaps 10mm just isn’t enough to fill that Scourge shaped hole in your heart? Therefore we have taken this Warrior and given him an upgrade. This 32mm Dropzone Commander miniature is truly unique and is the first of its kind.
Or just a random, one-off thing. They've done an Automated Dreadnought and Ether Drake previously (but IIRC they were for a different game originally).
Yeah those were intended as a test to see interest in a Stellaris board game, but that was it. The Dropfleet rules have been added after fan demand.
The ship could be just another human ship from an isolated colony similar to kalium. But new aliens could be cool, too! They teased something ancient in the recent short story.
I love the ship and the 32mm Scourge. I need them both.
Brickfix wrote: Yeah those were intended as a test to see interest in a Stellaris board game, but that was it. The Dropfleet rules have been added after fan demand.
The ship could be just another human ship from an isolated colony similar to kalium. But new aliens could be cool, too! They teased something ancient in the recent short story.
What short story? Is it on their blog?
Are the Stellaris minis ever going to hit retail? Have they said?
I would not get my hopes up about a Dropzone 32mm game. There are so many games out there that would already cover the same aspects. Only caveat would be a very small game to play out close quarter battles inside the scenery pieces. But i would be really surprised if they actually create such a game.
I kinds like it, but at the same time think it looks like a high tech Nike shoe, and there is no way it could actually walk. Detailing is well done, almost enough to hide how ridiculous the legs are.
ImAGeek wrote: I’m just not sure how dynamically you could pose it.
If the front could turn to the side slightly it might be better, but it has a giant vertical-only joint you can see. You get downward-facing-dog or plank. That's it.
I can't tell at all what you could do with the claws.
I see all the elements of the Pizzaro in the model, but the Pizzaro was designed to hunt mega-fauna. This thing is supposed to be an industrial excavator. They should look nothing alike. None of the concept art made me think it was an up-scaled Pizzaro.
pgmason wrote: There's two potentially cool looking vehicles there, but put them together and it looks awful - like one is eating the other.
That’s almost how I interpreted it. I was reminded of that Key and Peele skit about Ice T’s dog. I get that it’s supposed to evoke a truck hauling a trailer or something, but the most SFW description I can give it is “Mecha human-centipede.”
pgmason wrote: There's two potentially cool looking vehicles there, but put them together and it looks awful - like one is eating the other.
That’s almost how I interpreted it. I was reminded of that Key and Peele skit about Ice T’s dog. I get that it’s supposed to evoke a truck hauling a trailer or something, but the most SFW description I can give it is “Mecha human-centipede.”
What a crazy model.
I was literally going to post "Mecha human-centipede", until I saw you did, lol.
While waiting for the remaining Behemoths, or rules updates, or anything else DropNoun, you may have missed the good ol' fashioned internet slapfight TTCombat have gotten into with Secret Weapon Miniatures.
Justin, owner Secret Weapon Games wrote:Mr. Simpson [owner of TTC] opens his public statement by saying that he has not read the statements that he is responding to. That’s a weird flex, but I guess it was too difficult for him to read, so away we go…
I love hobby drama, especially when they're dishing so many screenshots.
TTC wrote:Are there any KPIs in place, i.e. how much retail product does each member create each hour/day? (We expect staff here to make as a minimum $200 per hour RRP of retail product... ).
Justin wrote:Not only did I spend my “vacation” running TTC promotions every day, I kept a daily work log at the request of Louis Simpson, in an app he instructed me to install on my phone, so that he could see what I was doing every day. Still, it was a nice change of scenery.
I've always suspected TTC of running a miserable sweatshop of a company. With that level of micromanaging, no wonder they can't hire and keep people.
TTC wrote:I have been made aware of another pack of lies posted by Justin McCoy of Secret Weapon Miniatures. I honestly will not waste my time reading it and hope to make our response far easier for interested parties to read.
Counter-receipts, but if I'm reading them correctly, they don't refute much of anything at all.
I seriously wonder if all the angry ex-Hawk employees went through something similar when TTC bought them out. It would explain a lot, if Justin is correct in that TTC tried to help SWG fail so they could buy the corpse cheaper.
I look forward to watching how this continues to play out with bated breath and steaming popcorn.
That's bs. Fight in public or die in obscurity. Of course it's normalized at this point but nefarious actors thrive in a world where disputes are silent.
The Troll Trader stream is having a special guest tomorrow. The Creator of the Drop-Universe, Dave Lewis will be painting up a tank from the Space Halfling Kickstarter and answering your questions.
8:30AM until finished.
https://www.twitch.tv/trolltrader
Designated Dragons, the Shaltari Behemoths are the latest colossal killing machines heading to Dropzone Commander. This is amongst the biggest miniatures TTCombat has ever made so strap in!
Welcome to this week’s Teaser Tuesday and we’re glad to be welcoming even more Behemoths to the battlefield. Let’s have a quick backstory for those new to the Drop-Universe. The Shaltari are an advanced race of ancient Aliens who have learned to transcend death itself. Their Homeworld remains a mystery and this ancient race was the first mankind came into contact with. Following this, some Scourge and PHR stuff happened and like most things in this universe, war followed.
Now the Shaltari are deploying their Behemoths in an attempt to even the playing field.
This monster is going to take more than a weekend to assemble! The Celestial Dragon shown above is an enormous hyper-advanced GOD of any battlefield. Whilst these machines bear a resemblance to other shaltari walkers such as the Warstriders, this unit dwarfs them.
The Celestial-Dragon sports one of the largest energy weapons seen in battle; the High Power Particle Triad. This enormous triple-barrelled version of the weapon found on the Ocelot Warstrider. Therefore you have huge long-range capabilities and a peerless armor-penetrating capability. Better yet, you have a pair of tank-sized laser ”Fangs” which when used correctly are supper effective at destroying other factions’ Behemoths from distance.
Okay, so if I wanted to buy a Shaltari army, where do I start? They have a Starter Army, so I assume there- are there other units/models that are considered must have?
The shaltari battleground is a good deal on some new minis, you could expand from there. The big skimmers (caiman, crocodile) are fun, too. Definitely add some Pungari and the frostdrake.
The starter box has way too many basic infantry and tomahawks, tough. I recommend playing with the online list builder before committing to a purchase, it might be the case that you don't even need the starter army (but as you will need most of the gates in the box, it's already a good deal for these alone)
The_Real_Chris wrote: If i could find the video of the chap building the dropship in dropzone commander scale I would...
Sadly purged from the internet. The youtube channel hosting the videos got wiped a few years after the TTC acquisition, the internet archive doesn't have the videos saved, no one at TTC nor Dave himself (the chap from the video) can find any original copies, and the general attitude about the channel from current employees seems to be "that person won't talk to us".
The_Real_Chris wrote: If i could find the video of the chap building the dropship in dropzone commander scale I would...
Sadly purged from the internet. The youtube channel hosting the videos got wiped a few years after the TTC acquisition, the internet archive doesn't have the videos saved, no one at TTC nor Dave himself (the chap from the video) can find any original copies, and the general attitude about the channel from current employees seems to be "that person won't talk to us".
So yeah, R.I.P. the UCMS Avenger build vlog.
The Hawk takeover wasn't a pleasant one - the only person who was kept on was Dave and the entire rest of the staff were let go after assurances were made they wouldn't be....so yeah I can see why
I seriously wonder if all the angry ex-Hawk employees went through something similar when TTC bought them out. It would explain a lot, if Justin is correct in that TTC tried to help SWG fail so they could buy the corpse cheaper.
From having friends that worked there at the time, it's certainly how it was presented to me at the time.
I REALLY want to get back into Dropzone but it seems to be far more unstable than when Hawk had it. Stuff has pretty poor stock, and the community engagement (the crowning glory of why Hawk grew so fast) just isn't there anymore. Considering these were teased literally years ago I'm finding it hard to get hyped for it at all and think that the game is going anywhere.
I think TTC messed up the preview stats, or at least I hope they did. 3 shots, strafe-3 is 9 attacks, plus the 2 destroyer shots, plus the strafe-6 destroyer, all at sufficient energy values to threaten armor, vehicles, buildings, and basically everything on the board. It's too well rounded. It's basically an entire armor group of walkers and skimmers Voltronned into one giant model able to do anything with no weakness.
winnertakesall wrote: From having friends that worked there at the time, it's certainly how it was presented to me at the time.
* checks on the Secret Weapon/TTC drama * Ooooh, a countersuit. I'd love to see this go to trial and gawk at all the aired dirty laundry. But I've probably got my hopes up too high over the three ring circus that was watching the Alex Jones trial a couple weeks back. (he's from my city, I grew up prank calling him when he was on the public access cable channel in the 90s, and his schtick was mostly an homage to Art Bell. I still see him occasionally downtown and on campus.)
Automatically Appended Next Post: Check it out, Dave talking about the Shaltari Behemoth model. That dude is infectiously authentically excited about the game in a way that no one else at TTC is.
I fervently hope his reemergence in this video, the Twitch stream, and the the PDFs herald the dawn of the third age of Dropzone with Hawk Dave back at the helm, evangelizing.
I have the event exclusive escape pod that is intact. It's not huge, and I doubt they scaled it up. I would bet the entire scenery piece is about the size of a small resistance hovercraft.
It makes for a great objective!
That post has got me worried. Titania in zone meant the old sculpts were no longer available. Like the old Albatross is 100% OoP.
They've had low stock on a lot of plastic sprues, and between TTC's love of cutting costs at the expense of quality and Brexit et al, I'm extremely concerned this is a testing of the waters for ditching plastic altogether.
Also I detest the new sculpt. It looks so generic. I've seen that ship profile a thousand times and I'm bored to death of it.
Overread wrote: I can't see them dropping plastic. More likely this is them expanding the model range without bloating the rules.
Between Brexit, shipping costs, their acquisitions tieing up the up-front investment necessary for plastics, the litigation with Secret Weapon, offshore manufacturing of the plastic sprues, their self-admitted-in-the-blog inability to get printed paper products at a viable cost, I absolutely 100% can see it.
I hope it's alternative sculpts and not money saving. They even released the resistance plastic starter after acquiring hawk, so I am not sure it's likely they would want to ditch that. The plastic starters are what keeps the game alive (for me at least).
They released a whole range of resin alternate models for Dropzone resistance and the (admittedly not plastic) Original sculpts are still available.
Brickfix wrote: They even released the resistance plastic starter after acquiring hawk
If you mean the Dropfleet starter, my understanding was that was already in the works when Hawk was acquired. If you mean the Dropzone resistance starter, it's the one starter NOT in plastic.
We are very excited to announce some fantastic news!
Last month we were approached by Warmill to discuss purchasing their IP and MDF designs. The owners had commitments elsewhere but (considering its popularity) didn’t want the range to simply be discontinued. Considering both companies’ desire to make a deal happen our negotiations were brief! We are delighted to announce that the Warmill MDF range will become part of the TTCombat product line in the coming weeks. We will even be making some new kits to compliment the current ones too!
Brickfix wrote: They even released the resistance plastic starter after acquiring hawk
If you mean the Dropfleet starter, my understanding was that was already in the works when Hawk was acquired. If you mean the Dropzone resistance starter, it's the one starter NOT in plastic.
I mean the dropfleet starter (but i see that the sentence was a bit confusing). My understanding was that Dropfleet resistance was off the cards for Hawk and got only made after the purchase by TTC.
I still don't think they will replace the plastic but i could be wrong. The fact that TTC doesn't produce anything else in plastic kind of speaks for itself ...
I have currently a hard time to get my group motivated to give DFC a chance. When the argument that many ships are plastic kits is gone I see no real chance to get anyone to dip in to it. For games like Carnevale, ok, few models that profit from the resin cast details. But a game that is like all about fancy sci fi ships I really dislike the bendy resin sculpts.
Plastic kits are such an integral part of each faction that dropping them would mean they'd have to take on an insane number of resin kits to replace them.
It just doesn't make sense unless they are considering shifting Dropfleet to a game on lifesupport. Which is almost baffling to me considering that they've got the whole space market to themselves outside of Battlefleet Gothic 3D print stuff
I think theres a lot to unpack in terms of Dropfleets "failure to launch". Its the only actively produced game in its genre/what should be a wide open market. That it isn't succeeding indicates theres something wrong, what that something is is anyones guess, but I'm guessing marketing has a lot to do with it.
I can't speak for others but for me the game itself is lacking in several places.
To name some examples: Not enough differentiation between weapons. It is very easy to find point efficient guns for each class of ship, leading to very similar lists.
Not enough differentiation between the different ship types. Why take a cruiser when the light cruiser can do the same but better.
Battleships just suck. Nothing around it.
I don't want to get to indepth, I love dropfleet for just the availability of great, diverse and interesting space ships, but the game ... Uff
My opinion is that the rule set is designed for Real Gamers, not Dirty Casuals. The drop portion of the game is too important and just not what many want out of a space battle game. I’ve house-ruled the game to just the shooting bits, but those should have been front and center in the rule book.
It also doesn’t help that the rules and minis are hard to buy in the US. I don’t know how many people are willing to order direct and place hundred-UKpound orders for the free shipping.
That’s not getting into the community freaking out at the kickstarter for the usual kickstarter issues.
True I think the lack of a regular ship to ship battle has possibly held it back. By all means the dropship part shouldn't be shelved (yay I avoided saying dropped!); but when a game has a whole market to itself it doesn't need to be a specialist to survive. If anything offering a more generalist system would work better at gathering up all the various market groups for itself; esp the general ship vs ship space battle (which is likely the largest block)
chaos0xomega wrote:I think theres a lot to unpack in terms of Dropfleets "failure to launch". Its the only actively produced game in its genre/what should be a wide open market. That it isn't succeeding indicates theres something wrong, what that something is is anyones guess, but I'm guessing marketing has a lot to do with it.
TTC is doing less than the absolute minimum to drum up player engagement compared to Hawk. DFC was core to Hawk, but it's just a fun side hustle for Troll Trader.
Brickfix wrote:Battleships just suck. Nothing around it.
H E A R D.
I want to love my magnetized UCM BB, but it just doesn't do what you want a battleship to do. We've been kicking around the idea of upping the hull for all faction ships of the class as a starting point.
Disagree on the rest, but we're still fairly new (3 players, 4 factions, a dozen games) into the game so maybe that'll come with time.
I would agree about the "drop" aspect of the game not appealing to many who just want to bash spacefleets, its definitely kind of a square peg/round hole situation where the game has a solid ruleset but doesn't necessarily appeal to many players because the way you have to play it is almost nothing like the way many people *want* to play it.
I feel as iff being based in a country with no way to get outside of direct ordering is what caused the game to peter off.
Like TTC was nothing and still is. Carnevale and Rumbleslam where games no human has heard of before they bought the Dropzone IP.
Its honestly sad to see a game that could have rivaled GW in some spots, fail because
1: Hawk had eyes bigger than its stomach
2: it was bought by people whose main buisness is selling MDF terrain
hotsauceman1 wrote: I feel as iff being based in a country with no way to get outside of direct ordering is what caused the game to peter off.
Like TTC was nothing and still is. Carnevale and Rumbleslam where games no human has heard of before they bought the Dropzone IP.
Its honestly sad to see a game that could have rivaled GW in some spots, fail because
1: Hawk had eyes bigger than its stomach
2: it was bought by people whose main buisness is selling MDF terrain
I thought TTC was an appendage of one of the larger hobby distributors in Europe (Golden Distribution or something like that?)? I would have thought that would have been helpful in terms of getting their products into stores on that side of the pond. Otherwise I agree, failure to establish any sort of reasonable distribution outside of Europe has definitely stunted growth in the US. I would imagine TTC continuing to waste resources on Rumbleslam and Carnevale is also dragging on their ability to develop DzC and DfC properly. I'm sure Rumbleslam and Carnevale are profitable, but neither of them will ever be popular or truly "successful" - I'm sure the ROI if they invested into DzC and DfC is much higher, and the IP in general has a much higher potential ceiling.
this made my day.
You'd have thought I'd have noticed that, having read it then copy & pasted it...
